Ashes
by Sincerely- AnonymousP
Summary: One legend had passed on. But with his passing, the Yondaime left the ninja world a legacy that would rise out of his Ashes. Watch as Naruto Uzumakimakes it with her own team into the stories of the legends.
1. Chapter 1

Okay so I re-did this intro for anyone who wants to read it. I really didn't like the first one, it seemed like a turn-off for anyone who was starting to read my fanfic. You know, a bad first impression. So For nyone who actually takes time to read these A/N's please review on this intro compared to my other one. It was also an attempt at doing something else with my style of writing. So as always, enjoy the show!

**Disclaimer:** Does anyone really think a sixteen year-old kid on a _fianfiction website _owns anything even close to the phenomenon that is Naruto? Yeah, I didn't think so.

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Ashes

Prologue

Ashes

_It was the end of a legend._

_Minato Namikaze looked over the familiar grounds of Konohagakure and felt a pang of loss in his heart. The once beautiful trees and forests, now burning and destroyed, would be his last memory of his home he realized. A feral roar drew his attention from his surroundings to its source. _

_There, in the midst of flying jutsus and fire, stood hell itself manifested. The monstrous Nine-Tailed fox, Kyuubi no Kitsune, stood blazing in all its demonic glory, tearing through trees and Konoha ninjas alike while they fruitlessly attempted to halt its decent into their beloved village. Screams from the fallen and orders rang through the air; it was the music of war that Minato had hoped that he would never again have to hear. Though this time the war was not against mere human rivals; No, it was against the wrath of nature itself. _

_Seeing the fox continue onward, the Yondaime Hokage gave a small sigh, his mouth fixing into a thin determined line. Biting into his thumb, he flew through several one handed signs before slamming a single palm onto the ground. After the smoke cleared, a giant toad fifty feet tall now stood where the man had with a small figure standing on its head. _

"_**Minato," **__the summons glanced up to the Hokage, "__**Why did you summon me?" **_

"_Gamabunta, I need a favor old friend." The man indicated the raging fox in the distance and the toad gave a surprised grunt. _

"_**The Kyuubi?" **__Minato nodded, "__**I hope you know what you are doing blondie."**__ He merely smiled in reply and Gamabunta crouched before leaping into the battle with the demon with the blonde flashing to the ground to begin preparation. _

_Un-noticed before, a small shifting pink bundle began to wail loudly from the Hokage's arms causing the man to pause for a moment. "Shh Naru-chan," He whispered, "I'm almost done then you can go back to sleep." Minato waited until the crying was reduced to sniffling before continuing. Once again biting his thumb, he flashed through hand signs before calling the name of the technique that would end his life._

"_**SHIKI FUJIN!"**_

_A bright white light filled the forest, blinding everyone battling. When it cleared, no sign of the previously roaring demon was seen. Nothing except a small seal covering the torso of a little whimpering babe. _

_With the sealing technique finished, Minato fell to the ground exhausted. He could feel his own life fading away as he glanced the burning forest around him through pained eyes. 'So this is my last sight'. He once again felt a now familiar pang of loss and remorse. He could do nothing now. He would not be there to help raise and protect his village or family. He was leaving them behind. He was leaving his home. _

_As he took his final breath however, his gaze finally rested on the baby cradled lovingly in his arms. Wide, innocent blue eyes gazed back into his own bright ones and Minato's mouth turned upwards into a small smile. 'No… I'm not completely leaving them. They have hope now; they have you Naru-chan."_

_The sight of his small daughter was the last thing the great Minato Namikaze, Hokage of Konogakure saw before he died._

_And so passed a legend._

_Hiruzen Sarutobi approached the still form of his predecessor, and gazed at his form with grief-stricken eyes. Soon he spotted the shifting bundle in the Yondiame's arms. Kneeling down he carefully extracted the small infant wrapped in pink cloth and swept his eyes over the sleeping girl's scarred face. _

"_I am sorry," he clenched his eyes shut and took a deep shuddering breath. "My dear, you will face a life I would not wish upon any human being, especially not you." He stopped as small eyes fluttered open to reveal startlingly deep, sea blue orbs. _

"_I hope your Will of Fire will burn bright, Naruto. For you are special."_

_Hiruzen, now once again the Sandaime Hokage of the Great Village Hidden in the Leaves, turned and left the scorched and scarred battlefield with the small baby girl looking curiously over his shoulder at the man lying seemingly asleep on the ground with a small smile and his golden hair blowing faintly in the wind. _

_So passed one legend, but from its ashes a new one is born. _

**Chapter One**

**Dream of Dreams**

It was a beautiful day. The sun shined down with a gentle breeze blowing through the air. Naruto, or Naru, Uzumaki leaned back on her usual spot on the Academy swing and closed her eyes enjoying the gentle stroke of the wind.

Although she wasn't quite old enough to enter the Academy (she was only five after all) Naru frequently visited the swing in front of it to just sit and watch the students come out and play. Sometimes if she was really lucky, a kid or two might even ask her to play with them. She would have fun until an adult would pull them away from her and literately hiss at her to stay away.

The small girl frowned at the thought. She didn't know exactly why the villagers and other grownups always acted like that, and she tried her best to ignore it. But wherever she went she was avoided like some sort of flu. She didn't even ever get the flu or any kinda cold for that matter!

"Naru, what are you doing over there?" Said blonde whipped her head full of shaggy blonde hair around to beam at her favorite person. The Sandaime Hokage, or Hokage-jiji, gave her a gentle smile in return.

"Wells," she jumped from the swing and trotted over to the older man, "I like swings you know? And also I like watchin' the kids at the 'Cademy come out and play, and if I'm lucky I get to play too! When can I enter the 'Cademy Jiji? Next year, or maybe I can just sneak inta one of tha classes, what do you think?"

The Hokage chuckled at his 'granddaughter's' unending enthusiasm. "Yes Naru, next year you'll be old enough, and no I don't think it would be a good idea to sneak in. You sneak into enough places as it is." At this he raised an aged eyebrow and the blonde had enough decency to at least look a little bashful. But unfourtunately the effect was ruined by the small snicker that escaped her mouth.

"Sorry jiji, I honestly really, _really _promise that I absolutely didn' know that the grey building was the really off limits ANBU place. Besides, I saw Doggie-san go in there lots, so I wanted to say hi!" Naru's face considerably brightened at the mention of her favorite ANBU agent and second favorite person. He had been one of her more common guards when the villagers thought it was a bright idea to trash her place or mug her during the Kyuubi festival. Not surprisingly, based on who the Dog really was, Naru had taken to him like a fish to water.

Hiruzen smirked. "Yes well I'm sure Dog-san would've been happy to see you too had you not been carrying a water balloon behind you when he found you." Cue apologetic smile.

"Sorry?"

"What am I going to do with you Naru-chan?" The Hokage moaned dramatically. The five year old began to giggle and jumped eagerly into the Old Man's arms for a hug.

"You wouldn' ever get rid of me, woulda?" She gazed up at him with the biggest blue eyes he had ever seen and a foxy grin on her face.

Hiruzen chuckled. "No Naruto, I enjoy your company too much."

Naruto stood away from him and scrunched up her face a bit before replying. "Does that mean you like talkin' to me Jiji?"

"Yes Naru-chani it means-"

"Great!" Naruto shot forward to grab the Hokage's hand in her own small one and began dragging him back towards the market center of the village. "Then how 'bout you enjoy my comp-ai-nee over a nice bowl of ramen!" I mean if the Old man liked talking to her so much, what could be better than talking over Ramen! It's a double bonus!

Hiruzen shook his head fondly and followed after the bouncing, ramen-obsessed blonde. "Sure Naruto, we can get ramen. And I think that Teuchi and Ayame enjoy your company too."

"Really!" Naruto turned her penetrating gaze to her jiji once again, with happiness shining in her eyes. She always liked the kind ramen shop owner and his daughter. When she was really hungry they would sometimes give her a free meal. A free meal meaning about five bowls of her favorite dish. "Wow, now I have four people who like to talk to me! You, Doggie-san, and the Ichiraku people!" She flashed a smile to the Hokage who could only muster a strained smile that looked more like someone was slowly torturing him by pulling off his fingernails out with a tweezer.

After the blonde turned back around, the Hokage frowned and gave a heavy sigh. _It's a sad day when the only friends a young girl has are two shop owners, the Hokage, and an ANBU agent that keeps vile people from attacking her. _The Hokage glanced around the street they were walking to see the villagers bow down slightly to him, only to turn around and sneer at his companion. And if they didn't do that, they completely ignored her. _Minato, if you saw the way the village treats Naruto, would you have let the fox destroy it, or would you do it yourself… _

The older ninja glanced once again at the seemingly happy and oblivious blonde skipping in front of him to the ramen shop. She was wearing only a white tattered t-shirt, he himself had given her last year, that had a red spiral on the front of it and a pair of black shorts that were in more or less good condition.

As the trained shinobi examined Naruto, he could tell that she was never as oblivious as she acted towards her treatment. With parents like hers, how could she be? Her bounce was stiff and forced and she made sure that when she wasn't facing her jiji, her head stayed staring straight in front of her. Yes she knew she was disliked, even hated by the villagers. But she never knew why, which was the worst part in her young mind.

He also suspected that the reason for her love of ramen had a lot to do with the people serving it. They were some of the first, and only, people to see Naruto for who she was, and not what she contained. They had gained Hiruzen's eternal respect for that alone.

"Well hello Naru-chan!" The old man looked up from his musing to see a brown haired, teenage girl wave at his charge from behind a serving counter.

"Hiya Ayame-nee-chan!" Naruto waved frantically and sped away from the againg Hokage and up towards her sister figure at the stand.

"How's our favorite customer doing today?" Naruto, if it was even possible, stretched her grin further when the owner of the ramen shop entered from the back area.

"Great Teuchi-jiji!"

Teuchi then turned towards his second customer who had just sat down at the small counter and gave a small bow. "Hello Hokage-sama, it's good to see you here with Naru-chan again."

Hiruzen waved off the formality. "I always enjoy coming here, besides the food is wonderful. And please excuse the formality for now."

The shop owner relaxed his shoulders and grinned. "Thank you very much for the compliment Hokage-san. And I must say having you frequent our little stand has done wonders for our business."

"Yeah, yeah it's 'cause he's tha' Hokage!" Naruto nodded her head sagely. "And when I'm the Hokage lots of people will come here to eat 'cause it's the best!"

Sarutobi blinked down at the little girl sitting next to him in amazement. "Hokage Naru-chan?" How could she possibly want to be Hokage to a village that ignored and shunned her?

"Yeah! Hokage's are the strongest in their village and protect all of the people. When I become the Hokage everyone will forced to rec'gnize me an' respect me 'cause I'm the strongest. And I'll protect all my best friends." Naruto's eyes shinned with determination. "I'll be better than all the other Hokages. Including you Jiji!" She flashed the Sarutobi a foxy grin and pointed a finger up at the man. "You just watch it 'cause I'm goin' to be the one to take that hat from you."

Hiruzen chuckled and ruffled the small girl's messy blonde locks affectionately. _Naruto you are truly something special. _"I'm sure you will Naru-chan." He looked to the shop owners to see them smiling gently at their youngest customer. _Yes, _Sarutobi looked up to the mountain filled with the faces of the past leaders, _if anyone can do it you can Naruto._

"Now can I get some miso ramen Teuchi-jiji?"

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**A/N:** Okay so that's about it. For anyone reading this, refer to my note at the beggining. Please, Please, PLEASE review... I don't have enough and looking at the near empty review box is kinda sad...


	2. Chapter 2

Welcome to another installment of _Ashes! _I hope that my first chapter was good enough for all ya Naruto lovers out there. And now in this chapter enters on of my absolute favorite characters (besides Naruto and Kakashi). Read on to see what events unfurl as NAruto comes face to face with the Snake Mistriss herself, Mitarashi Anko!

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**Chapter Two**

**Enter the Snake!**

"Stupid, Stupid, STUPID!"

Had anyone been walking around the training grounds for the Academy, that statement would probably be all they would hear and would have heard for the past two or more hours.

"I HATE this STUPID bunshin!" Uzumaki Naruto, now ten years old and attending the Academy, stood tapping her foot impatiently in one of the training ground clearings staring down a sickly looking copy of herself. She hadn't changed all that much. She still had her famed whisker marked cheeks and sunny blonde hair that was now pulled into a high ponytail on her head. Her normally sparkling sea blue eyes were staring something awful at her, yet again, botched attempt at making a single clone.

"Why can't I freaking do this!" she yelled to no one in particular. This Academy ninjutsu was the only one she was still unable to do and she was the one of the only ones left unable to successfully complete it. Unfortunately it was also the one she would need to know for the Academy test in the coming year. She had begged the Old man Hokage to let her take it and he finally had agreed, constantly reminding her not to get her hopes up at passing it. Heck, even Iruka-sensei was telling her the same thing. Weren't teachers supposed to _encourage _their students to pass?

"I'll show them I can pass…" she mumbled under her breath heatedly. She dispelled her current failure and prepared to try again. She flashed through the hand signs and drew on the smallest portion of her chakra that she possibly could.

Poof!

A cloud of smoke covered the area and Naruto kept her eyes squeezed shut waiting for it to disperse. Slowly she began to lift one of her blue eyes open, with hope clearly shining in it.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH"

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Hiruzen looked up from his desk as a resounding shriek of frustration echoed throughout the village. After a moment of silence he shrugged and went back to doing the devil's wor- I mean the Hokage's duty.

Paperwork. Ugh.

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Naruto angrily plopped down on the grassy field after dispelling the 'copy' of herself and stared up at the clouds drifting across the sky. Why couldn't she do this jutsu? It was only an E-rank for crying out loud! If she wanted to be Hokage someday she couldn't be stuck on a stupid _E-rank _justu! Sighing she took a note out of one of her year mate's book and just watch the clouds pass by in the sky her anger melting just a tad bit as she spotted a ramen bowl shaped one. Huh, _maybe Shikimaru was onto something._

Sighing, Naruto stood up and dusted the grime and dirt off of her new cloths and began her long walk to Ichiraku's. She was glad she got new cloths from Hokage-jiji and all, but that old all-neon-orange outfit she had wasn't that bad was it? It was all orange, what could be better? Now she sported a loose grey t-shirt with (thankfully) orange accents on the sleeves and a pair of short black kunoichi shorts. _At least it has orange on it._

Naruto kicked a stone walking through the village. She absolutely had to pass that early graduation exam to prove to Hokage-jiji that she could be the best ninja ever. Looking up she scanned the area for her favorite eating stop, completely bypassing the hard glares burning holes In the back of her head. _If looks could kill… _

"Naru-chan!" Said blonde looked to her left to see Ayame waving at her from Ichiraku's. Grinning, she bounded up to a barstool and plopped down in front of her friend.

"Heya Ayame-nee-chan, can I have a bowl of miso ramen?"

The waitress blinked at the young girl now resting her head down on the bar counter. "Just one Naru-chan?" The girl nodded.

"Well, that doesn't sound like the usual Naruto I know." Both girls looked to the back to see Teuchi entering from the back and washing his hands off on an old dish rag. "Anything wrong?"

Naruto sighed for the nth time that day. "Yeah, got Hokage jiji to sign me up for the early exams but I can't do one of the Academy jutsus no matter how hard I try." Narrowing her eyes she picked at the paint on the counter before continuing. "If I don't pass this test then I can't graduate early and show everyone how great I can be." She paused again before a small smirk tugged on the edges of her mouth. "That and I won't be able to shove it in Sasuke-teme's face that I graduated before him." The stupid duck-butt kept calling her dobe. It wasn't her fault she found the academic part of school boring and seriously lacking in excitement.

"But Naru-chan," Ayame pointed out, "you could always try again next year, couldn't you?"

"But Ayame-nee-chan," Naruto whined, "I need to do it on the first try to show everyone how good I am! It took me forever and a bunch of nagging on my part to get Hokage-jiji to let me take the test in the first place."

"Couldn't you get any of the Academy teachers to help you after school?" Teuchi asked, though he had a sneaking suspicion what the answer would be.

"Nah," Naruto snorted at the suggestion, "Iruka-sensei is always busy with other kids and when I did get him to help, he just said 'practice makes perfect'. Mizuki-sensei always has something else to do and leaves almost immediately after school." Naruto began to sniffle a bit. "What am I going to do now!" She moaned.

Teuchi set down a large bowl of miso ramen in front of the girl before replying. "Well, why don't you ask another ninja to help Naru-chan?"

Naruto blinked slowly at the suggestion before she gave the ramen stand owner an 'oh-duh-why-didn't-I-think-of-that' kinda look. "Of course! I could ask someone like Dog-san!" Grabbing her ramen bowl she slurped it down in record time before dropping some ryo onto the counter and speeding off with a 'Thanks Teuchi-jiji' shouted over her shoulder.

"Hm," Teuchi picked up Naruto's left over bowl and examined it, "she must've been in a hurry. She didn't even finish all of the broth." Ayame giggled at her father and busied herself with cleaning the rest of the counter.

Luckily Naruto knew where the majority of the training grounds were and she had no problem with sneaking onto them. Crouching down low in a bush she began her search for a suitable instructor for the future Hokage.

Thirty minutes later, a suitable candidate was still nowhere to be found. Naruto was pretty sure she spotted that skinny guy with the weird round glasses she saw talking to Hokage-jiji, but he looked to weird and she also though she spotted an orange book in his hands like she saw in Dog-san's sometimes. She definitely didn't want to be trained by a pervert. Well, other than Dog-san.

"This is hopeless," she moaned. At that moment something happened that when Naruto looked back on it, she couldn't quite decide whether it was a blessing from the heavens, or a curse from the Shinigami for doing something so horrible, that not even giving up ramen for a month could help.

Thud!

Naruto Froze in place as a shuriken imbedded itself on the tree she was in front of, just a measly inch from her face. Swallowing the lump in her throat and squashing the forboding feeling in her gut she turned to peek out of the bushes she was hiding in to search for the owner of the ninja weapon.

It wasn't hard. In a large clearing, three times the size of an Academy one, stood not one ninja, but two identical kunoichi facing off against each other. They had a peculiar violet hair color mostley tied up in the back of their head. But what really struck Naru was the cloths she was wearing. She wore a tight fishnet shirt with a short black ninja skirt and black ninja sandles. Over allof the was a light tan tranch coat that went down to just above her elbows and down to her thighs. Over all it didn't leave much to the imagination.

Naruto had stars in her eyes just watching the reavealing kunoichi fight against…well, herself. Not only did she know how to make a clone, but she knew all sorts of other cool ninjutsus. Naruto would definitely be able to graduate early and therefore be ableto rub it into Sasuke-teme's face.

Cackling madly the blonde made to dash out of the bushes when she yelped at being suddenly lifted up by the scruff of her collar.

"What the hell do you think you're doing here runt?" Blinking, Naruto found herself greeted by the sight of a very annoyed looking version of the kunoichi she was watching earlier, holding her up by her shirt. For a moment Naruto could do nothing but gape at the violet haired ninja, looking very much like a fish out of water. The ninja gave her a shake. "Well?"

As if it were a switch, that one word opened the floodgate to Naruto's long, drawn out problem.

Taking a deep breath she began speaking rapidly. "Well you see I'm ten years old and at the Academy right now and I had been begging Hokage-jiji to let me take the early graduation test since I'm old enough to take it. At first he said no, then I said please, then he said no, then I said please gain and again until he said yes, so I'm taking the early exam but in order to actually pass the test I have to know the clone jutsu and no matter what I do I can't make a bunshin and none of the teachers can help me so I went to Teuchi-jiji and told him then he told me to find a ninja to teach me so then I came here to find a ninja and I found one that always talks to Hokage-jiji, but he was a pervert, so then I found you and I was watching you and you were totally awesome and I was going to ask you but then you found me so now I told you and," here she finally paused before beginning again. "will you teach me how to do the clone jutsu so I can pass the test the first time! I absolutely have to pass the test so I can show everyone how awesome I am and that I can be the Hokage and respected and also so I can shove it up Sasuke-teme's-"

A hand clamped over her mouth before she had the opportunity to finish her very tiring monologue.

Mitarashi Anko had a headache. A big, big headache. Who knew brats had such large lungs. She asked the brat a 'what are you doing here' not 'what's your life story'. Dropping the kid roughly on the ground she began to massage her head, completely ignoring the expectant look the brat was giving her.

"Beat it." Naruto's hopeful expression fell of her face and was replaced by one of confusion with a side of indignance.

"What!"

The ninja finally looked down to face the blonde. "You're still here? I said scram. I'm not teaching some wet-behind-the-ears Academy brat. Now go before I feed you to my snakes." Heh, that should send the demon-spawn running.

"Whoa, you have snakes? Cool!" Wait, what? This kid was either insane, or high off of a crap load of meds. Anko glanced down to see the little snot staring up at her with adoration shinning in her eyes. Yup. Definitely insane.

"Not only can you do super awesome jutsus but you have snakes that can eat people! Wicked," Naruto breathed. She had definitely found the right person and she'd be damned if she couldn't get the violet haired woman to teach her. And seeing the kunoichi straighten up with pride, she had an idea how to go about tricking- eh-hem, convincing her. "You've got to be way cooler than any ninja I've ever seen. And snakes are so awesome with their fangs and poison and- and fangs!" Naruto wondered whether she had over done it but one look at the ninja and her fears were put to rest. The seductress now had a full blown smirk showing on her face and was puffed up almost as much as a peacock.

"You bet I am. I'm the beautiful and amazing seductress Mitarashi Anko at your service." Eh, maybe the kid wasn't so bad after all; she had a great eye for awesome ninja at least. "I like your style squirt. What's your name?"

Naruto internally did a happy dance, pointedly ignoring the comment on her height. Operation: Suck Up was a success! Jabbing her thumb at her chest, the blonde announced, "I'm Uzumaki Naruto future Hokage at your service!" Anko stopped cold and closely scrutinized the kid more so than before. She, like all adults in the village, knew who the 'Kyuubi brat was'. Heck she guarded the kid once or twice. So Anko was well aware of the pain and loneliness the brat had suffered. She went through it herself when her former sensei betrayed the village and left her to bear the brunt of the villagers' hate. Looking down on the much too small ten year old, Anko made up her mind.

"Well brat, you're in luck! You've got yourself a sensei!" Outside she gave her newest student a large grin, inwardly she was cackling with evil laughter. The kid was young and impressionable enough to mould into a miniature Anko. This would be so much fun! Unfortunately what the snake mistress didn't realize was that the evil cackle had escaped outside of her mind.

Naruto knew that she should be jumping for joy at finally finding a sensei, but now looking at her cackle, she wasn't so sure that the lady was entirely sane. Oh well, too late to turn back now.

"Sweet! So when are you gonna teach me the clone jutsu?" Naruto was practically jumping in place with anticipation.

Anko place a hand on the golden head to stop the bouncing before answering. "Hold it squirt." Said squirt frowned at the name. "Who said that's all I'm teaching you?"

The glowing look on her students face was amazing. "While you're with me, I'm gonna introduce you to a whole new world of pain."

Oh, how she couldn't wait to utterly destroy it.

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A/N: Okay so the second chapter is done! Anko is personally one of my favorite characters and a lot of the stories I've read have seen as a sister figure for Naruto but few ever explain how she gets there, so that's kinda my purpose for this chapter. To introduce her and kick start the coming chapter filled with much painfu- excuse me- fantastic memories for Naru with Anko.

And again, please review, it makes me a happy, happy authoress (I'm not entirely sure that's even a word but oh well).


	3. Chapter 3

Hi and welcome to the next chapter of my Naruto story _Ashes_. I have to admit that the title was a pretty awesome thought on my part (considering that I don't have very good muse capabilities, my muse wireless is down). It was the result of divine intervention. So now we enter into Naruto's training for her bunshin technique. Or is it?

Disclaimer: I do not, nor do I suspect, that I will ever own Naruto in this, or any other life. Poor me.

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**Chapter Three**

**What Training? This is Torture!**

It was another beautiful, typical Saturday morning in Konoha. The birds were singing, nice breeze was blowing through the trees, and Uzumaki Naruto was sound asleep in her little apartment, dreaming of ramen. All was calm.

That calm was immediately destroyed when one of her only windows shattered as a human came hurtling through it.

"The amazing Mitirashi Anko has arrived." Anko gave a pose and stood in it for a few good seconds. Not hearing the applause (or at least the screams) she expected, the snake mistress glanced around the small apartment her student's humble abode. And humble it was. The 'apartment' was a small one room with a kitchenette attached to her left and what she expected to be a small bathroom door next to that.

Sighing, the kunoichi shook her head sadly at the conditions of Naruto's living area. _Poor kid. No one deserves this._ Those thoughts, however, flew out the window as soon as she spotted a snoozing lump in the middle of a twin bed. Her left eye twitching just a bit, Anko stomped over to one side of the bed and grabbed the sheets. _Heh, this'll teach her to ignore Mitirashi Anko's entrance. _With a quick, powerful tug, everything on top of the sheets was sent tumbling to the floor.

"AAHH!"

Thud!

"Who the bloody he-"

Anko calmly stepped towards the swearing mess of ten year old on the floor beside her bed and promptly whacked her upside the head. "No swearing ya brat."

The said brat blinked slowly up at the violet haired woman. "Mitirashi-san?"

"That's Anko-sensei to you brat."

The blonde's face screwed up as she reviewed the past minute in her head. The blue eyes flashed dangerously when she realized exactly who had dumped her on the floor at, according to her clock, five in the morning.

"Anko-sensei what the fu-"

Anko bonked the girl on the head with her fist again. "I said no swearing! For a ten year old brat, you sure do have a mouth on you."

"Fine," Naruto growled out, "what the _heck_ are you doing in my apartment at five in the fu- freaking morning! And why did you throw me out of my bed, huh?" Was this lady crazy? And the swearing wasn't exactly her fault. She picked up the words from one of the chunnin guards that she had played a prank on; he used the words quite fluently too.

"First of all brat, you wanted me to train you right?" Anko waited until the girl slowly nodded. "Well then, that answers your question."

Naruto picked herself up from off the floor and proceeded to gape at new teacher. "At five in the morning!"

Anko gave the blonde a wicked grin. "Yes. And to answer your second question, its cause that's the kind of nice sensei I am. You missed my grand introduction into your apartment so that was your punishment. Honestly," she lectured, "do you have no appreciation for how hard it is to dive through your window at the exact angle from the building across the street? By the way, you're going to have to replace that."

By that time Naruto had been struck dumb and was reduced to gaping at the walking disaster she had unknowingly allowed into her life.

"Alright then brat, I want to see you in the training ground we met in yesterday in exactly one hour, got it?" Getting no response, Anko merely shrugged her shoulders, wrote out a note, and leapt back out the shattered window, leaving a comatose student in her wake.

* * *

_What have I gotten myself into? _Naruto seriously doubted her ability to judge people's characters. Her sensei was, after all, one crazy lady. It was 5:50 in the morning on a Saturday, and she was trudging to meet up with the very ninja who had crashed through her window fifty minutes prior and had woke her up by dumping her on the floor. Nevertheless, Naruto had made a deal with the snake mistress, and she intended to keep it.

"Well hello there brat!" Anko was sitting on a branch from the tree they had met under the previous day, chewing on what Naruto believed to be a dango stick."I was sure you were going to ditch!"

Naruto shook her head fervently. "Nope. I never back down!"

Anko returned it with a grin that was close to making her wish she did occasionally back down. "Well let's see if you can keep that attitude for the next…" She tilted her head thoughtfully. "When is your early graduation test?"

"A month," the ten year old piped up.

"Alrighty then, see if you can keep that attitude up for the next month." She hoped down from her perched and strolled over to where her student was waiting. "Well shall we get started?"

"Yes!" Naruto bounced in place. "What are we going to do first? Work on my clone technique, or ooh I know! I'm going to learn an awesome jutsu!"

"Nope," Anko said bluntly, now examining her fingernails.

"Or maybe even- wait what?" Naruto did a double take at Anko's statement.

"I said we're not doing any of those." At this Anko plopped down onto the ground. "First we're going to introduce ourselves, likes, dislikes, and interests. I don't know what you know about me, but I don't know jack crap about you." Okay so maybe this was a lie, but a little white lie never hurt anyone. Except for the majority of the people she was sent to assasinate, but that was besides the point. And honestly, she really didn't actually know anything specific about the girl except her name and goal and she only knew the latter because she went around blabbing it to everyone and anyone who would listen.

"Ok then," Naruto joined Anko on the forest floor, "My name's Uzumaki Naruto. I like plants, training, my precious people, and sometimes books." Anko snorted a bit at the last one, inconspicuously of course. "I dislike bullies and people who judge others they don't even know. I guess my hobbies are the same as my likes, training, reading, and planting." Naruto paused before continuing and when she did, determination showed clear in her eyes. "My dream is to be-"

"The best Hokage ever yadda, yadda." Anko interrupted yawning a bit, all the while completely ignoring the hole Naruto was burning through her skull._ It looks like I'm going to have to improve the brat's glare before we're done_. As it was now, it could easily be mistaken as a cute pout. Yeah, not very effective.

"Fine, your turn," the blonde snapped.

"Oh, touchy are we," Anko teased. "My name is Mitarashi Anko. I like my snakes, dango, and," she shifted her eyes away from her student and gave a little cough, "other activities."

Naruto raised an eyebrow at that. Smelled like blackmail. "I dislike stuck up pricks with sticks shoved so far up their asses they can't breathe."

"Hey," Naruto shot up pointing an accusing finger at the violet haired kunoichi. "You said no swearing!"

"No," Anko waved a finger at her student. "I said _you_ couldn't swear. I said nothing about me." She finished with a triumphant grin; whoever said outsmarting a child half your age wasn't satisfying was really missing out

Naruto plopped back down with her arms crossed muttering under breath about 'dumb, sneaky, crazy snake ladies' and 'their dumb hypocritical rules'. Choosing to ignore the comments, said crazy snake lady continued, "My hobbies are those certain…activities and eating dango. My dream, well I don't really have one," Anko shrugged.

Naruto couldn't believe it. This lady was _weird_! First the glasses wearing pervert now this! How come she always found the wackos?

"Ok," Anko clapped her hands together startling Naruto as she stood from her spot on the floor, "let's get started."

"Finally," Naruto moaned.

"Run laps."

"What?" Did Anko-sensei, who was supposed to help her with the _bunshin no jutsu, _just tell her to run laps. "Why?" Naruto whined.

With her eye twitching just a bit (the brat better hope that it's not permanent) Anko bit her thumb, flashed through series of handseals to fast for her student to see, and slammed her hands onto the ground. With a poof, Naruto found herself face to face with a rather large snake about as thick as her thigh and a good several feet long.

"Naru-chan," Anko sung in a sickly sweet voice, "Meet Mai, my favorite and _very _poisonous snake. She's your reason to run." A shiver went down Naruto's spine that had nothing to do with the early morning temperature.

"You're kidding, right sensei?" The ten year old gave her sensei a small questioning smile.

Anko ignored the questioned and turned to her summons. "Mai, meet breakfast."

At this point the blonde Academy student realized her sensei was in fact not kidding; with a yelp she turned and sped off into the field with the poisonous snake Mai and Anko's evil cackle following after her.

* * *

"Stupid…evil, sadistic…crazy…snake…lady…" Naruto, collapsed and gasping for breath under the starting tree, cursed every being in existence that she could think off at her misfortune.

"What was that Naru-chan?" Anko was eating yet another dango stick (where the heck did they come from anyway) from a shady branch in the oak above her. "You want another lap with Mai?"

"N-no thanks…Anko-sensei," Naruto attempted to give a weak grin that came out more or less as a tortured grimace. "I was just commenting on how…great a teacher you are. I mean you provide such great encouragement."

By the end of her sentence Anko could clearly detect the underlying sarcasm, but chose to ignore it. After all, poisonous snakes were wonderful sources of encouragement. "Yep. And now that that's done we can get to the real issue."

Naruto felt hope rise in her chest but quickly squashed it back down. There was no telling what the seductress was going to do next.

"Your bunshin!" Naruto's shoulder's visibly sagged with relief.

"Finally."

Anko jumped down from her branch, landing gracefully in a crouch in front of the exhausted blonde. "Yeah, yeah. Now stand up ya lazy bum. We barely did anything."

Grumbling, the whiskered girl slowly stood in front of her sensei. "Ok what first."

"First," Anko began, "I want you to show me what your bushins normally turn out like and we'll go from there."

Naruto sighed but did what she was asked. Going through the normal signs, she concentrated her chakra and-

Poof!

...

"BWAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Naruto crossed her arms and glared at her sensei, who was currently rolling on the ground with laughter, with a glare so vicious she was vaguely surprised when the ninja didn't instantaneously combust on the spot; instead she continued to roll around in the dirt, her hysterical laughter filling the air.

"Are you done yet Mitarashi-san," Naruto snapped at the kunoichi. She didn't need to laugh so hard. She knew her bushin needed work, that's why she was here wasn't it? Looking down at the crumpled, sickly form of her resulting clone though, Naruto could help but feel a bit hopeless.

Anko stopped laughing for a moment to examine her student; feeling a twinge of guilt at the angry, somewhat hurt, expression that occupied her normally cheerful face. Why she felt guilty she had no idea. She'd done worse to others and walked away whistling a merry tune.

But then again Naruto wasn't like anyone else. She didn't have anyone to comfort her and be there for her. And the number she did have, Anko could count on one hand; two thirds of them were well into their fifties and sixties and all of them worked. To her, the laughter over her failed bunshin would seem like just another villager ready to scorn her and cut her down. Coming from someone who she trusted, even just a little, was a harsh betrayal. It was a little like herself, the snake user realized.

Frowning at the thought, Anko stood, dusted herself off and turned to her still fuming student. "Yeah, I'm done. Sorry Naru-chan didn't mean to make you mad."

Her student's expression immediately softened into a look of annoyance, Anko hoped it was directed more towards the clone than her. "It's ok," Naruto gestured to her 'clone', "this stupid technique is just retarded." Gazing up at her sensei Naruto asked, "You think you can help me?"

Shifting her gaze between the 'clone' and her student, Anko's composure became thoughtful. "I'm sure I can figure out what's wrong." She winked down at the blonde. "And if the amazing Mitirashi Anko can't then no one can!" After ordering Naruto to dispell the sad excuse for a copy, they began again.

"So let's try this again, this time take the smallest amount of chakra you can possibly grab, and go from there." Nodding, Naruto repeated the same sequence, this time using the smallest amount possible. More than a couple poofs later and nothing had changed. Although Anko was getting better at holding her laughter in each time the botched clone popped into existence.

Anko patted the sitting blonde on the head in support. "Well squirt," Naruto would've glared at her had she still contained the engery required to do so, "it seems that your chakra control, to put it bluntly, sucks."

Naruto blinked. "My chakra control?"

The older woman nodded in conformation. "Yep. You see the more chakra a person has the harder it is to control. Usually it's guys that have this problem as they naturally have more chakra," she lectured. "The less chakra a person has, the easier it is to control. Normally kunoichis have better chakra control because of this," she nodded her head in Naruto's direction, "with of course the rare exception being you."

"Really?" Naruto couldn't believe it, she probably had more chakra than the teme! She couldn't wait to rub it in that duck butts face and in front of his entire-

"Congratulations kid," Anko interrupted here small charge's train of victorious thoughts, "you're a weirdo in the world of chakra."

Naruto gave her teacher a look that clearly said 'are-you-freaking-kidding-me'? "You're calling _me _the weirdo? Have you checked in with a psychologists late-" She stopped when she saw her teacher's eyebrow start to twitch dangerously. She happened to notice that that only happened when she was annoyed, which was happening rather frequently lately. And an annoyed Anko-sensei, was a sadistic, conniving, evil, and unforgiving Anko-sensei. "Nevermind."

Snorting, the sadistic, conniving, evil, and unforgiving sensei continued, "What having craptastic chakra control _means_ is that you're going to have to train to improve it."

The blonde's expression became confused. "Uh, how exactly do you 'train' for better control."

The violet haired ninja's eyebrows jumped up to her hairline and her face became incredulous. "Geez don't any of those wannabe ninja teachers teach you anything at that 'institution'?" Taking a moment to think over her own question, Anko quickly cut off any reply the ten year old could have come up with.

"Nevermind, forget I asked. How you can improve your control is simple." She paused for a moment letting the tension build and her student's curiosity grow. "By climbing trees." Naruto's crestfallen face was priceless.

"Climbing trees? Are you kidding me? I already know how to climb trees."

"Ah," Anko was almost bouncing with glee as she left her student sitting in the grass and approached a large oak tree, "but can you climb them with no hands?" She then proceeded to not just climb it, but skip up it with only her feet.

"So, still think you know how to do it?" Anko allowed a smug smirk to work itself onto her features.

Naruto was much less controlled in her reaction. "COOL!" All exhaustion forgotten, she raced up to the tree her sensei was currently hanging from. "How did you do that?"

Doing a graceful flip off the tree bark, Anko grinned at the eager, bouncing ball of energy in front of her. _The amazing Anko strikes again! _"Well brat first you've got to concentrate chakra into the bottom of your feet. That'll let you stick to the bark-"

"Ok!" And with that the whiskered girl raced towards the tree and attempted to do the same up the bark. She made it about two steps up when she was blasted off the bark and flat on her back.

Leaning over her cute student, Anko was met with a glare to rival that of the Uchiha's. _Ooh she's getting better! _"Welcome back." She quipped teasingly. The glare was unrelenting.

"You totally knew that was going to happen." The accusing tone in her voice was unmistakable, but the seductress' grin merely widened.

"Now Naru-chan, you were the one that went racing off without any warning. I just sat here and enjoyed the show." The answering snort showed just how much the girl appreciated her instructor's sadistic tendancies. "So continuing before you sped off, if you apply too much chakra, demonstrated so," she gestured towards the good sized dent in the tree, "you'll get blasted off and land right back on your ass. If you have too little chakra, you'll slip off the bark and result again in landing on your aforementioned backside."

Naruto sat up again and rubbed her already sore back and eyed her teacher standing innocently next to the tree that had previously blasted her off. "You're going to enjoy this aren't you?"

The responding grin that Anko-sensei sent while whipping out a dango stick would've been enough to make even the toughest, hardened shinobi run crying for their kaa-san.

* * *

A/N: I'm whipping out these chapters like nobodies business! Again if you find any errors in my Japanese then please let me know. I know nothing about the language, just what i've gatheredd from my highly valued resources, namely google. And constructive (not flaming) critiques are welcomed. Any and all flames will be henceforth sent directly to Orochimaru's private bathhouse. (Creepy to think about, right?) So don't send them!

Review, I'm pretty sure they place that blue button on the bottom there for good reason.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: If you really care to know, please refer to the past three chapter. Thank you, and have a nice day.

* * *

**Chapter Four**

**Can you say Trademark?**

"Anko-sensei, this isn't working," Naruto called out from her place on the underside of the branch she had been walking on. For the past week the only thing the duo had worked on, excluding the usual torture runs in the morning with Mai, was Naruto's tree walking exercise. By the fourth day she had mastered it, but unfortunately it had not helped in the slightest.

Anko gazed up at her student. She was actually pretty surprised; the blonde ball of energy might not be the most talented, but she sure made up for it with dedication and pure stubbornness. Not that she would ever be caught dead complimenting someone out loud, hell no!

"All right brat," Anko flicked her wrist sending her left over dango stick flying into the tree bark to join about twenty others. "Your control must be worse than I thought if tree walking won't help." Naruto scowled and jumped off the oak branch to join her teacher on the ground.

"Well then, what do I do now?" Honestly, making a clone shouldn't be this hard. It was only an E-rank Academy technique after all. And Naruto wasn't willing to give up her shot at graduating early just cause she hit a minor bump on her road to becoming Hokage.

The snake mistress strolled over to where the ten year old was sulking and ruffled her hair. "Relax, we'll get it eventually! In fact," she paused a moment before her face split into a grin, "relaxing might just be what you need."

Naruto could've cried with happiness. The entire week had been one long torture session. Sure she didn't have to train with Anko when she still had to go to the Academy, but that only made it worse. As soon as the whiskered girl set foot out the gates, the violet haired woman poofed up, threw her over the shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and raced back off to the training ground for another round of cruel and unusual punishment.

"So in order to properly relax," Anko continued, "We're going to go get some more dango!" Taking a box out of one of the many trenchcoat pockets, she opened it then tossed it to the side. "I ran out of my last stock anyways."

"Nuh-huh," Naruto left her sensei and headed out of the clearing. "There is no way I'm eating dango."

Anko looked as if someone had just killed her puppy (had she owned one)right in front of her with a chainsaw. "Not eat dango. Runt, something has definitely screwed with your mind. Dango is the food of the gods."

Naruto made a gagging noise. Dango better than ramen? Ha, I don't think so. "_Ramen_ is the food from the gods, not that sticky junk called dango."

Anko was on the ramen freak faster than she could blink, hoisting her up yet again by the collar of her shirt. "Brat, I've failed you as a teacher if you don't appreciate the delicacy that is dango." Just thinking about the sweet treat had her salivating in the mouth. Ignoring the squawk of her student, Anko threw her over the shoulder set out for the dango shop. "Besides kid, ramen is a load of crap. You can't eat it all the time."

"Hey," the blonde protested, "don't insult ramen ya wacko!"

"Then don't insult dango, midget."

"Crazy."

"Chakra freak."

"Snake freak."

"Brat."

"Baa-san- oof!"

Naruto picked herself up from the ground that she had so graciously been welcomed to via Anko. "Ouch, you crazy baa- ow!"

The violet haired kunoichi's eye was once again twitching dangerously as her fist made contact with her student's head. "Quiet midget." In a flash she had a kunai in her hand and a strange glint in her eyes. "Or maybe you want a special training session designed especially for you and Mai," she purred, petting the knife almost lovingly.

Naruto's eyes widened comically as they switched from the kunai to her teacher and back again. She had no doubt that the 'special training session' Anko designed would be as agonizing as and tormenting as possible. "Nah, Anko-sensei I think I'm just fine."

"Okee-dokee then," Anko's personality did a 180, giving her student a broad grin, kunai gone, and hauled the gaping preteen to her feet. "Let's go get that dango!"

Naruto sighed and began to follow after her bipolar sensei skipping down the road. She paused as the faint whoosh of something flying through the air headed in her direction. And in that moment Naruto remembered exactly where they were and what kind of people she was surrounded by. _Not again. _Clenching her eyes shut, the small girl waited for the impact of what the villagers had decided to peg her with this time.

It never came. Squinting behind her she caught sight of Anko's closed fist right behind her head. What really made her blood run cold though were her sensei's eyes. The light that usually filled the warm brown was stamped out and instead replaced by a hard piercing gaze that glinted with such ferocity; Naruto was frozen on the spot wondering if the stranger in front of her was really the same person she knew.

Releasing her fist, a good sized stone fell to the ground at the woman's feet. Anko gazed around the street for the _bastard _who _dared _throw a _fucking_ stone at a little girl. She didn't have to search for long. A plain man with brown hair and black beetle eyes stood sneering at the two companions from a fruit stand on the other side of the street. Striding over to where the man was still standing, Anko released a small amount of killer intent and gave him a feral smile. "Excuse me, _dirtbag_," the short-tempered ninja spat out, "you wouldn't by chance be the one who threw a stone at my young student over there would you?" Her body language screamed 'I dare you'.

To the man's credit he was only sweating at the amount of KI that the kunoichi released instead of wetting himself like most. That was cancelled out by the fact he didn't seem to recognize the signs of a volatile ninja. "You mean that _demon_," he sneered out. "That _thing_ gets everything that it deserves." He defiantly glared at the woman in front of him.

That was a mistake.

"Is that so?" The killer intent drastically spiked causing others near the stall to quickly move away from the escalating temper of the ninja. The shop owner's gaze faltered and he took a quick panicked step backwards as the kunoichi stepped closer.

"Y-y-yes," he stuttered, though he didn't sound nearly as sure of himself as before.

"Then let me warn you," Anko hissed, disgust dripping from every word. "If you _ever _harm that girl again," in the blink of an eye a kunai was pressed up against the man's neck drawing out a thin line of blood, "I'll show you what a real demon can do." With the threat hanging in the air, Anko whipped around and strode back to where her student stood with her head bowed down.

"Come on brat," she began the walk to their destination again when Naruto's soft reply stopped her.

"You didn't need to do that…" The whisper was so quiet that the snake mistress would have missed it, had not the street been as silent as a grave after the episode. Looking behind her, she saw that the little blonde girl still stood in the same spot with her head down. Anko felt a pang in her heart when she realized the small child was shaking like a leaf. _Bastards…_

Naruto heard her teacher's footsteps crunch over the dirt road, slowly making their way to where she was. She didn't mean for Anko-sensei to have to defend her from the villagers, and she certainly didn't want them to be mean and cold to the violet haired woman just because she was around the 'demon'. She shouldn't be treated that way. The blonde stiffened as Anko knelt down to her level.

"Of course I did." Naruto's head snapped up in shock to gaze at her defender, blue eyes glistening with unshed tears. The young woman was giving her a soft smile that Naruto had never seen on her features before. Her brown eyes were once again filled with their normal luster and warmth and- something else...understanding?

Anko lifted a hand placed it on her head, ruffling the blonde hair affectionately. "You're my cutest little student." She winked at the girl. "It's my job to protect you." Anything else she might have said was cut off as Naruto gave her a flying tackle hug, knocking her back and wrapping small arms around the kunoichi's slender neck.

"Thank you."

Anko blushed a bit before coughing and finding a suddenly fascinating bug on the ground. "Yeah, yeah ya brat," not once looking back at the ten year old, she extracted herself from the blonde's hug, stood up and brushed herself off. "Well are we gonna go and eat some ramen or what?" Naruto's eyes shinned as a smile spread across her features.

"Really?"

Her sensei scoffed. "Tch, what do you think I said?"

Naruto cheered. "Yes!" Grabbing her companion's hand, she proceeded to drag her further down the street in the direction of the small ramen shop. "You're going to love Ichiraku's. They have the best ramen anywhere and Teuchi-jiji and Ayame-nee-chan are awesome. I can't wait for you to meet them!"

Anko just followed the younger girl's lead, listening to her jabber excitably about random things from the ramen owners to some 'duck-butt' in her Academy, whatever that was.

"Hiya Teuchi-jiji!" Naruto greeted the old ramen maker as she and Anko took a seat at the bar counter.

"Well hello Naru-chan. And this," he know directed his attention to the purple haired figure next to his favorite little blonde, "must be your new sensei Mitarashi-san." The ninja flashed the man a smile and thumbs up.

"Good to see the kid mentioned me. I'm the amazing Mitarashi Anko."

Teuchi chuckled. "Well I must say Naru-chan, she's not as horrible as you made her out to be."

Naruto gulped and gave a small forced laugh eyeing Anko next to her."Heh heh yeah, she's actually pretty great." All the while trying her best to ignore the short tempered ninja's piercing glare. "So!" She quickly redirected the conversation and glanced around the small serving area. "Where's Ayame-nee-chan?"

The man's face drooped a bit. "Oh she's wasn't feeling quite well today so she stayed home. I'm sure she would've loved to meet your sensei though."

"Ok then, can I have an extra big bowl of miso ramen?" The blonde ramen freak hadn't been able to come to Ichiraku's for the majority of the week; she was definitely going to make up for lost time.

Teuchi chuckled, "All right Naru-chan." He turned to his second customer, "And what would you like Mitarashi-san?"

"Pork Ramen thanks." The man nodded in confirmation and headed to the back to begin preparing the order.

"So sensei." Naruto bit her bottom lip nervously, "What are we gonna do about my _bunshin no jutsu_?" So far, nothing they did improved her dreadful bunshin to passing standards at the Academy, not even the chakra control exercise she had mastered. The only noticeable difference was that she could now make three sickly clones instead of one.

Anko inwardly sighed. Honestly, she really didn't have any other ideas on how to improve the brat's clone. She had another chakra control exercise but she doubted that it would make much of a difference. She had a sneaking suspicion that Naruto's problem was more than just bad chakra control. But if what she suspected was true, then there was nothing they could do about it.

"Well Naruto, I'm not exactly sure we can fix your clone." Anko held up a hand before Naruto could protest. "I have another exercise but I don't think that'll help much. You just have too much chakra."

The blonde's face became panicked. "But Anko-sensei, I've _got _to graduate. If I don't then I can't prove to Old Man Hokage and Iruka-sensei that I can be the best ninja ever! And if I'm not the best ninja ever then- then-"

The girl's rant was halted by Anko's slap upside the head. "Relax brat." Teuchi came back and placed the two bowls of ramen in front of his customers, Naruto's being significantly larger. "I never said we'd give up on it." She turned to her own bowl and began to slurp down some noodles before continuing. Or she would have continued, had she not been completely struck dumb at the three empty bowls laying innocently in front of her student.

"Wha?"

Teuchi chuckled at the incredulous expression on the kunoichi's face. "So I'm guessing that you've never seen Naru-chan here eat ramen." Anko merely shook her head.

Jeez could that kid eat! And besides that, where the heck did all that fatty food go? There was no way that she could constantly eat that much and still be as small as she was. And the speed! She ate faster than Kakashi in a crowd-

Wait. Kakashi!

"That's it!" Naruto yelped in surprise at her teacher's sudden outburst.

The blonde eyed the older woman suspiciously. "What's 'it' sensei?" Whatever it was, judging by the smile on the kunoichi's face it was something either really good or someone was going to be in extreme pain sometime in the near future.

"I know how to fix your clone problem squirt!" Anko smirked down at her student and did a little happy jig in her head.

"Really! How? What do I do? Is it another chakra exercise or something completely different? When-" The rest of her torrent of questions was cut short as a hand slapped against her mouth. Anko was still staring victoriously into space, reveling in her moment of genius before turning back to her student.

"Not what my dear Naru-chan, but who."

-SNUS-

Naruto yawned for nth time that morning. The sky still had a few colors spread across it's horizon from the sunrise with the normal breeze blowing through the air.

It had already been an hour since the six o'clock designated meeting time at that Anko had set with the mysterious person she had mentioned the previous day. Neither Anko nor M.P had shown up so far to collect her and by now the cranky blonde was beginning to think it was just a hoax. Who set a meeting time so darn early on a Sunday just to not show up anyway? It was only through sheer determination to solve her clone problem and pure stubbornness that kept her leaning against her oak tree bark by now.

Anko hadn't actually given the girl any information on M.P. for that matter, or even a hint on how he could help her. At the time she had believed her sensei just wanted it to be a surprise, but now…

_Oh well_, Naruto yawned and closed her eyes, _might as well get some shut eye._

"Yo!"

"AAAEEEEHHHH!"

Shrieking, the half asleep ten years old leapt forward in surprise only to trip over a rock and reacquaint herself with the not so friendly forest floor.

Fuming, the blonde spouted the first thing that came to mind, ignoring her vague sense of Déjà vu. She also obviously did not notice the presence of her sensei approach her spot next to the giant oak.

"Who the fu-"

Anko, her eye twitching in all its glory, slapped her swearing student upside the head with a resounding smack, effectively ending her profanity. "Brat, didn't I tell you not to swear. It was Anko-sensei's first rule!" She turned to the man standing almost lazily beside her. "And you," she pointed an accusing finger at the man. "My cute little student wouldn't have been so freaked if you had actually been on time!" She then proceeded to flick the fully grown man on the forehead.

Naruto, still recovering, froze when she heard the man's reply.

"Maa… Mitarashi-san," M.P. rubbed the abused area on his head, "I was helping an old lady-"

He was interrupted with an exclamation of, "Dog-san!"

It couldn't be, could it? It sounded exactly like Dog-san, he even started to use the exact same excuses, and no made excuses like him.

Anko blinked slowly at her student with a 'what-the-heck' expression fixed on her face. "Dog-san?"

Kakashi gave the small blonde gaping up at him, his famous eye smile and a cheery wave. "Yo Naru-chan. It's just Kakashi though."

His statement was entirely lost on the small child as she graced the man with one of her especially reserved, flying tackle hugs. "It_ is_ you Dog-san!" As she was peeled off from the man, Naruto took the time to observe him for the first time without his ANBU getup.

She had never seen him without his mask and always wondered what he looked like. Now that the blonde looked at him, she realized it wouldn't have really made much of a difference anyway. A blue fabric mask was stretched over the entire lower half of his face ending above his nose. His Konoha hitaite was slanted on his forehead at an angle to where it completely covered his left eye while the right eye was a deep obsidian that was only half open, overall leaving only about a fourth of his entire face uncovered. His silver hair was the exact opposite of his lazy appearance, sticking up in gravity defying action.

"Wait a second," Anko marched up and whipped out her accusatory finger at the former ANBU agent once again. "How the hell do you know my cute little student?" It solved the mystery of why he agreed to help the snake mistress train the midget without much complaint though. Knowing how the man was with his teaching (or lack thereof) of newbies, it should've immediately sent up warning signals when he agreed to teach an Academy student so easily.

Before Kakashi was able to explain, Naruto piped up supplying an explanation. "Well Dog-san here was one of the ANBU guards that hung around me when I was a kid. He was always super nice to me and gave me presents on my birthday when he was guarding me." The girl flashed the silver haired man a wide grin. "He's one of my precious people."

Anko sighed as Kakashi gave her a small 'more-or-less' shrug to confirm the story. "Ah well, there goes my big surprise." Motioning for her student to join her, she continued. "Even though you already know each other, I'm going to introduce you anyway. Kakashi this," she gestured to the girl beside her, "is Naru-chan my student. Naru-chan this," now nodding her head in the masked ninja's direction, "is one of the laziest ninjas known to Konoha. Hatake Kakashi" Here she threw Naruto a smirk. "He's also the one who's going to help you with your bunshin problem."

Naruto beamed at the former ANBU agent. "Awesome! So how are going to help me?" Not that she didn't want Kaka-san to help, but what exactly could he do that Anko-sensei couldn't?

"Well Naru-chan," Kakashi kneeled down in front of the blonde and lifted up hitaite revealing a closed eye with a thick vertical scar running through it. "I'm going to watch you do the jutsu to see what your problem is."

The girl scrunched up her eyebrows in confusion. "Anko sensei already did that though."

Kakashi eye smiled again. "Ah but did she have this?" Naruto audibly gasped as the masked ninja's second eye opened. In place of a deep obsidian, a blood red orb was present with three tomoes circling around it the center of the eye in a hypnotic pattern.

"What is it," she breathed. She'd never seen anything like it before.

"This is the Sharingan doujutsu. It's a bloodline limit." He continued with his lecture at the blonde's questioning gaze. "A blood limit is special ability found in certain families. The Sharingan is one of three doujutsu blood limits. It will let me see how you area moulding your chakra so we can tell what we need to change."

"Ohh," Naruto gave a foxy grin. "Why didn't ya say so in the first place?"

"Stow it brat," Anko flicked the girl in the head. "Get on with it already." The young woman did not like waiting. Patience was never one of her virtues.

"Alright then," Kakashi, still kneeling in front of the girl, gave her instructions. "Naruto the only thing I need you to do is to try and produce a normal bunshin while I watch, okay?"

"Okay." And with the copy nin's gaze firmly fixed on her she began the proper hand seals and gathered her chakra.

"**BUNSHIN NO JUSTU!"**

As the smoke cleared, Anko let loose a small snicker at the site of the usual trio of zombie clones, completely ignoring the burning glare that Naruto sent her way. After another minute of snickering, the purple haired ninja turned to Kakashi who hadn't moved from his spot. "Ya got anything from that Kashi?" It was really hard to tell what he was doing, but Anko was pretty sure he was in his thinking pose.

"Hm. Naru?" Said person turned her glare from Anko to face the masked man.

"Yeah?"

"Kakashi paused for a moment more, thinking. "Can you do that again? But this time just gather your chakra, don't release it."

Naruto gave her friend a puzzled glance before shrugging and doing as asked.

A moment later-

"Shit."

Anko's eyes narrowed at his dazed tone of voice. "What? What's wrong?"

"Holy- I mean just shit."

Stalking up to the still stunned shinobi, she poked him violently out of his stupor. "Stop muttering like an idiot and tell us what wrong." Inside though, Anko was a bit worried. Was something really wrong with Naru?

Turning to the youngest of the group, who was a bit nervous about his verdict, the copycat wasted no time getting to the point.

"You can forget about the bunshin."

Anko blinked. _Well he certainly didn't beat around the bush._

Naruto's reaction was much less tempered. "What!" She cried out. Was Dog-san crazy now too? "But I have to do the bunshin to pass the early graduation exam!" The girl began a panicked pace back and forth in front of the older ninja. "I can't give up on it now! I've been working on it forever, and if I don't pass the exam, then I can't prove to jiji that I can be an awesome ninja! And if I can't be an awesome ninja then-"

Naruto stopped her pacing as Kakashi, who had finally moved from his kneeling position on the ground, place a calming hand on her shoulder.

"Maa Naru-chan I said to give up on the _bunshin _jutsu." His mask crinkled as he gave what she suspected to be a smirk. "That doesn't mean I don't have something _else _to help you pass your exam."

"What?" Both females voiced at the same time.

Hatake Kakashi stood up to his full height and looked down at the eager blonde staring up at him. He saw the determination shinning in her crystal blue eyes. It was the determination to plow through whatever he had planned for her. He smiled.

"How would you like to learn the _Kage Bunshin no jutsu _Naru-chan?"

* * *

A/N: Okay so this chapter was hard to work through, but i like how it turned out. It's the main climax of NAruto bonding with Anko and also the first introductory of Kakashi! One of my all time favorite chacters! Yay! Now yes this story is going a bit slow, but i want to have a firm foundation. Next chapter is when things start picking up.

Please Review. It really helps with the morale of the writer and everytim we i get one i smile and save it in my inbox so i can go through them. Oh and my _only reviewer _(cough cough) asked wondered who Naru was going to end up with. Honestly i have no idea. I'm not a fan of the stories where the main character dates one person and leaves it at that. I find that incredibly boring. So you are welcome to write in any suggestions, but don't expect them to happen right away or anytime in the next 4 years. Naru is _ten _crying out loud...


	5. Chapter 5

Hey guys guess what? I'm alive! I know it's been a while since my last update but I had sorta a writers block with my style of writing, but i eventually finished so no worries! So without further dellays, here's the next installment of Ashes!

Disclaimer: No matter what, the only place I will ever own anything even close to Naruto, is in my dreams...

* * *

**Chapter Five**

**The Journey of One Thousand Begins with One Step**

"UZUMAKI! GET BACK HERE!"

Naruto was a blur of blonde as she raced through the streets of Konoha in the early morning cackling madly. Taking a quick glance behind her, it took all of the prankster's self control not to trip or roll around on the ground in laughter. It was her finest work yet.

Racing on the rooftops madly after her was large group of infuriated chunnins, several with some senbon drawn, chasing after her and all the while shouting some very colorful obscenities. But what really caught any observer's eye was the fact that they were splattered in a rainbow of neon colors. And they were covered in sparkles. Lots and lots of sparkles.

At the sight of the smirking prankster, the neon colored group gave war cries, pumping more chakra into their legs in hopes of catching up to deliver self serving justice to the perpetrator. The self appointed leader, who was dressed in the most eye burning orange ever known to man, shouted out to the blonde, "WHEN WE GET YOU'RE ASS UZUMAKI-"

Said girl snickered a bit more. Dang she had really pissed them off this time. Though, she was a little disappointed when no jonins joined the hunt. They always made it a bit more interesting. She took another glance at the chunnins and gave a squeak of alarm at their rapidly shrinking distance. _Hm…Maybe the sparkles were too much…_ Shrugging, she made a quick sharp turn and disappeared down into an alleyway.

Following her lead the group dropped down only to be met with an empty alley. "Where'd the rat go?"

"Damn, knew we should've asked the jonins…"

"And what? Let them see us like this?"

"Shut up," the orange clad leader grunted, "Split up and search. She couldn't have gotten far." With that the group split and took to the roofs.

Smirking, Naruto poked her head up out from a small inconspicuous trash can. No one could catch her! She was the great Uzumaki Naruto, Konoha's number One prankster, Future Ho-

Her internal celebration was interrupted when a firm hand gripped the back of her grey shirt and yanked her upwards to be met with the very annoyed face of Umino Iruka. _Scratch that. No one can catch me but Iruka-sensei._

"Uh hey Iruka-sensei," Naruto gave a forced laugh as she dangled in the strong grip, "What are you doin in this part of town?" Her only answer was the not so subtle twitch of the instructor's eyebrow. "Um sensei?"

"What?" Iruka took a deep breath to calm himself. It wouldn't acomplish anything to simply yell at the prankster for skipping school… again. He needed to approach this calmly and patiently.

"Are you alright? Your eyebrow is twitching again." Screw patience.

Iruka flung the blonde over his shoulder and, ignoring all protests, began the trek back to the Academy.

* * *

Naruto glared at the orange paint covered wall she had been scrubbing for the past thirty minutes as if it had insulted ramen itself. Somehow, she always forgot that the aftermath of her pranks usually resulted in her, some cleaning supplies, and lots of time.

"That wall isn't going to clean itself Naruto." Iruka sang from the chair he was sitting next to the only exit in the room, no doubt an attempt to thwart any hope of escape.

"But Iruka," said person rose an eyebrow at the whiny tone of voice, "I've got to go prepare for the test tomorrow! I don't want to fail."

The chunnin sighed. Honestly he didn't think Naruto would be able to pass the test and last minute studying wouldn't do much. She still couldn't perform the bunshin and without that she would fail. "I'm sure you'll do your best Naru." Of that he was sure. In all the years he had come to know the girl she wasn't nothing if not dedicated and hard working… when she wanted to be that is.

"Ha you got that right Iruka-sensei." The older man was flashed a brilliant smile from his student to which he returned with a small chuckle.

"But first," he nodded his head to the wall, "you've got to finish cleaning that wall."

Naruto moaned at her misfortune. "But that'll taka hours!" Anko-sensei wanted to meet up with her at Ichiraku's for some last minute encouragement. Or torture; with that lady you never really knew.

"Then think of that next time you decide to pull a prank like this." He stood up gestured around the room. Honestly if he wasn't so exasperated with the girl's antics he would actually be impressed. Not many Academy students had the stealth ability or planning to set up multiple traps in the teacher's lounge like Naruto had. It was even more impressive that she had it timed to where it went off during lunch when most of the chunnins would be in the room. Iruka himself had only just escaped the disaster to prevent a fight from occurring between Kiba and another older student. And if what he saw from the aftermath was any indication, he was tempted to let Kiba completely off the hook.

It looked as if a paint pallet had thrown up in the room and a two year old had been given far too much freedom with glitter. Nothing in the room had been spared but the random blank patches on the wall in the shapes of people. The first time he saw the mutli-colored group of teachers it took all of his carefully cultivated self control not to roll around on the floor in laughter or whip out a camera. Of course that didn't stop him from hunting down the one responsible.

Naruto gave the chunnin a cheeky smile. "Aw, you know you liked it." She could clearly see the underlying enjoyment that was buried beneath the responsible adult façade. After all, Iruka used to be part of the prankster brotherhood himself and had an appreciation for good planning and technique.

Iruka felt the corners of his mouth twitch but refrained from smiling at the hyper active blonde grinning at him. Their bonding moment was abruptly shattered however as a someone flung the door behind Iruka open with a loud bang.

"Oi brat!" The scarred chunnin was left gaping as one of the most scantily clad kunoichi he had ever seen came striding through the door and up to his now sweating student. "I thought I told you to meet me at your ramen shop! I've been sitting there forever with you being a no-show." The woman put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes down at the blonde. "What gives?"

Naruto glanced at the clock (which she had already rid of paint) and then gaped at the violet haired ninja standing in front of her. "Anko-sensei! It's been five minutes since I was going to meet you. That's not that long!"

Anko merely scoffed. "Whatever brat. You know I don't have any patience." She suddenly noticed the colorful decoration adorning the walls and raised an eyebrow at the blonde.

"What?" Naruto glared at the snake mistress. "I was forced to clean up my prank."

Anko bopped her student on the head. "Idiot. Cleaning up a prank, really?" Naruto looked down at the ground in shame. "If you're gonna do a prank at least make sure you have someone else to blame for it so you don't have to clean it up."She gave a disappointed sigh and shook her head while her student gave a small smile rubbed the back of her head sheepishly.

"You're encouraging her!" Anko looked back at the door and saw a brown haired man with a scar running horizontally across his face gawking at her.

"Yeah," she narrowed her eyes at him, "so?" The man supplied no coherent answer and instead just continued to gape at the kunoichi in disbelief. Ankoe gave the amn a quick one over and, feeling her sadistic side come out, Anko sauntered over to the chunnin with a sexy smirk playing across her features. "So…" Throwing one arm over his shoulders, she leaned forward to whisper in his ear huskily. "You like what you see, do you?"

Iruka's face turned beet red while he attempted to stutter out a reply and untangle himself from her grip. The snake user snickered and turned to Naruto. "Well kid lets blow this dump."

This seemed to be the switch for Iruka's brain to function properly once again as he reached out to stop the duo. "W-w-wait! Naruto has to finish-" Naruto's face broke out into a foxy grin, waving as she and Anko disappeared in a swirl of leaves. "cleaning…" Iruka ended with a heavy sigh and gazed around the room, most of it still covered in paint. At least someone got the afternoon off.

* * *

"Woohoo!" Naruto pumped her fists in the air as she and Anko appeared in front of the ramen store. "You have the best timing ever Anko-sensei!" Said person snickered a bit before ruffling blonde hair affectionately.

"I do, don't I?" Once again the chunnin's red face and incoherent stuttering was brought to mind and she broke into a fit of giggles. Priceless! "Naru-chan" the younger girl halted her victory dance to look at her. "Who was scar-face in there?" She'd have to remember so she could pay him a visit again, he was just too fun.

"Ooh, that was just Iruka-sensei." Naruto gave shrug, turning to hop onto one of the open stools with Anko following suit. "Hey Teuchi-jiji Ayame-nee-chan!"

The cook and his daughter grinned at the blonde sitting in front of them. "Hello Naru-chan." Teuchi nodded his head at Anko. "Good to see you again Mitarashi-san."

Anko shrugged her shoulders. "Eh, this place isn't bad." Naruto's face lit up. For the violet haired ninja that was a huge compliment. "Not as good as dango of course but not bad."

"Heh," the blonde flashed her a triumphant grin, "told you ramen was awesome! Can I have a miso jiji?" Nodding, the older man turned to his second customer.

"Shrimp." While they waited Anko turned her thoughts to her only student. Naruto had improved more than she would've guessed in such a short period of time. She had mastered tree walking fairly easily and had finally over her _bunshin _block. Anko shuddered as the whole, now a forbidden-from-mentioning, _kage bunshin no jutsu _incident flashed to the forefront of her mind.

**Flashback**

"_How would you like to learn Kage Bunshin no Jutsu?" _

"_Kage Bunshin?" Naruto's head tilted in confusion. "Is that like the Bunshin?"_

_The man shook his head. "What can you tell me about the Bunshin?" Kakashi asked kneeling back down to Naruto's level. _

_The girl's face scrunched up a bit in thought, "Well bunshin are clones of the original caster, right?" The silver haired nin nodded. "But those clones aren't solid." _

"_Exactly," his eye turned up into its customary upside down 'U'. "The Bunshin isn't solid and can't be used for combat. That's where the Kage Bunshin is different. It produces solid clones by splitting a person's chakra equally depending on how many clones you make." Kakashi heard a snort behind him and turned to face the snake mistress._

"_Yeah you forgot to mention that Kage Bunshins take a shit load of chakra. Not only that but it's registered as a forbidden kinjutsu to everyone below the rank of jonin." The blonde's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates at the statement and her head swiveled between the Cyclops in front of her and her sensei standing next to her, waiting for confirmation._

"_Yes but that's what makes it good for Naru-chan here." He ruffled her hair._

"_So I'm gonna get to learn a super awesome and even _forbidden_ jutsu like that?" Her face broke out into an almost feral grin at all the implied pranking possibilities that flashed through her thoughts. So many to choose from and so much time…_

"_Yep. Now watch." Naruto was abruptly brought out of her thoughts as the Copy-nin brought his hands together in one peculiar hand sign, resembling akin to a cross._

_There was a poof of smoke and… A dismayed groan sounded from the shortest of the trio. "But it looks the same as a regular old bunshin." Naruto gave the man's exact copy a confused frown. She hadn't quite known what to expect from the jutsu but she thought it would be more along the lines that included a big 'boom' with a flashy entrance._

_Disregarding the blonde's disappointed face, the clone, or what she assumed to be the clone, almost lazily flashed through several handsigns before calling out a jutsu she had never heard of._

_The blonde merely gaped as a large ball of flames soared towards one of the nearest training logs in the area. The poor wooden stump never stood a chance. _

_Anko was much less impressed and gave a small huff, muttering something that suspiciously sounded like "show-off."_

_As the Kakashi clone dispersed, Naruto turned sparkling blue eyes to the original. Anko slowly scooted away from the group simultaneously raising her hands to cover her ears. "Three…Two…One"_

"_COOOOOOOL!" Kakashi cringed a bit at the volume but otherwise raised his only visable eye into a smile, albeit a painful looking one. (if eye smiles could even look pained). _

"_Glad you like it brat," Anko walked back over to the group, her face set into a mask of annoyance, "but can we get to actually _learning _the jutsu?" Naruto nodded her head vigorously in agreement and glanced back at the masked shinobi._

"_Of course Anko-san." Kakashi bent back down to the young girl's level. "Did you see the hand sign I did Naru-chan?" In reply, the girl brought her hands up into an exact cross shaped replica. Kakashi nodded in approval. "Good, now what I want you to do is to push huge amount of chakra into the technique, not all of it, but a lot." _

_Naruto quickly waved off the jounin with a grin. "Yeah, yeah I got this!" Bringing her hands together, Naruto concentrated and began to feel her chakra swell. After another moment her eyes snapped open and she inhaled a deep breath of air._

"_**KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!"**_

_The training ground erupted into one giant cloud of smoke as the Naruto finished the jutsu. When it cleared Kakashi and Anko were blinded by a sea of little yellow heads. Covering almost every inch of the training ground were carbon copies of the little blonde Academy student. Some were even lounging up in the tree branches while others began to race around the field attempting to do who knows what._

"_Kakashi." Said man shivered as he slowly turned to face the kunoichi beside him. Her face was disturbingly blank, but her eyes were set in such a glare that Kakashi was suddenly aware of the many ways she could probably kill him with a toothpick_

_."Yes Anko-chan?" Kakashi resisted the urge to run like a coward as Anko's killing intent spiked when several dozen clones puffed out of existence from under a previously standing tree. Imfamous bingo book worthy ninja don't run like cowards._

"_I'm going to kill you very slowly. With a toothpick. And then I'll find your Icha-Icha series and Burn. Them. To. Ashes." He was sorely tempted._

**Flashback End**

The damage done to the training field was so extensive that it was still being repaired. Two weeks later. Although she had to admit, Kakashi's face when Icha-Icha was threatened was almost worth it. Almost. It wasn't worth the fact that the sheer amount of Naruto's personality she had been exposed to at one time was enough to scar her for life. And she was considered a psychopath by many. Obviously those many hadn't been exposed to several hundred little girls who had a fine appreciation of pranking.

"Anko-sensei?" The snake user was brought out of her musings as she glanced toward her student staring inquiringly up at her. The ends of Anko's mouth lifted into a small smirk when she caught sight of thee empty bowls laying innocently on the counter next to Naruto. Turning back towards the blonde her face turned into a full grin.

"Brat, as of now, I am no longer your sensei."

Naruto's somewhat confused face turned to one of distress. "What! Why?"

The kunoichi's grin morphed into a small smile and Naruto's heart fluttered when she saw a flash of pride in the brown eyes. "Because brat. You're gonna get a new one tomorrow when you become gennin." Anko barely saw a flash of yellow when Naruto hurled herself at the older woman. Anko froze in shock for a moment. Damnit, what was with this girl and her lovable, and very physical, hugs. She awkwardly patted the blonde head before pushing her away from the now smiling blonde.

She also pretended not to notice when the girl wiped her glistening tears. Anko's hand almost reflexively reached out to wipe the tears away herself but held back at the last moment. If she was exposed to the girl's happy-go-lucky-attitude much longer she could lose her reputation for being a terrifying child eater that parents told their kids stories about when they misbehaved.

"Thanks Anko-sen-, I mean Anko." Naruto corrected herself and sheepishly rubbed the back of her head.

Anko gave her a wide smile before whipping out a small scroll. "Don't thank me yet Naru." She set the scroll flat out on the table and bit her finger before smearing her blood on it. "You're still wearing that same getup and its traditional for a sensei to get their students parting gifts so-"A small poof from the scroll and medium sized box was now lying in its place. "I got you a little something." Naruto stared at the box in wonder before glancing at her clothes. It was true, she still wore the somewhat drab same grey, long sleeved, loose shirt and short mid-thigh ninja shorts. Over-all it was rather boring and as most people knew, Naruto hated boring.

With a quick look in Anko's direction, she swiped the box from the table and tore it open in a frenzy.

"Well," Anko urged, "how do you like it." In her hands, Naruto held a folded black coat that somewhat reminded her of her ex-sensei's. Wrinkling her nose a bit at the color choice, she unfolded the coat wand was met with the most beautifull sight she had ever laid eyes on. The coat was a long black trench coat that fell down to just below her shorts, almost identical in style to Anko's own coat. But what truly made her gasp was the fact that the entire inside of the coat was a truly wonderful, completely amazing burnt orange color.

"I had it specially made." Anko grinned at the wonder in Naruto's eyes as she marveled the coat. "I figured you got tired of ninja colors so I made it interchangeably. The black is for whenever you're on missions while the orange is for everywhere else. It might be a bit big, but do you like it?"

Naruto gave no indication that she even heard the explanation as she almost reverently slipped the trench coat on. The sleeves went a little further than half way down her arm while the bottom fluttered by her thigh. True to Anko's words it was a little big, but she hardly cared.

Anko was almost blinded by the beaming smile the blonde shot her way. Naruto stepped away from the shop and twirled a bit her laugh ringing through the air. Facing her not-sensei she replied. "I love it Anko-nee."

Anko almost spit out the water she had begun to drink at the new title. Swallowing a lump in her throat she took a long look at Naruto. Standing in the sun her face shinning in admiration and the trench coat a little too big on her, Anko, the violent T&I interrogator was struck with a thought. _Kawaii! _

With a squeal, she lept at the young blonde and swept her into one of the first hugs she had ever voluntarily given in the past ten years. Naruto was shocked that Anko had been the one to instigate the contact this time but soon got over it and let the kunoichi squeeze the living daylights out of her as much as she wanted. She was probably making up for lost time anyways."Aww," Anko cooed, "I've always wanted a little sister and you are just too cute!"

Naruto gave a cheeky grin before- "Aw, but Anko-nee I want to grow up to be just as amazing and beautiful as you are!" The prankster had long since discovered that laying it on thick was the way to go with Anko. And sure enough-

"Kawaii! You're going to be a mini-me I just know it!"

Naruto wheezed a bit when she was hugged a little too tight for comfort. "Anko…can't…breath!" Anko either didn't hear her or didn't particularly care for the now deadly hugging continued, and she was pretty sure it was even tighter than before. Abruptly she was released and Naruto began to swiftly suck in as much air as was humanly possible.

After regaining her consciousness, she looked up at her starry eyed nee-chan warily. Naruto now knew the secret to why Anko had refused hugs for so long. She had probably sentenced someone to death-by-hug when she got excited once. Yeah that would explain a lot.

A _whole_ lot.

* * *

Tick

Tock

Tick

Tock

Naruto figited nervously as she glanced at the clock in the Academy classroom reading 12 for the nth time that morning. She was sitting in an unfamiliar, despite being almost identical to her's, classroom surrounded by unfamiliar faces of kids, all of whom were at least two years older than her with the majority looking at her as if she were a lost child that had wandered into the wrong room.

It was the day of the gennin exams. The day she had trained for with Anko-nee for the past month to pass. The day that she guaranteed would mark her entry into the ranks of the ninja of Konoha.

When she had arrived at the Academy doors Iruka was there to greet her and sent her to this new class with the words "Just do your best". The underneath basically meaning that she should try her best, but not expect much to happen in any case.

The normally cheerful blonde scowled at the thought. She would be darned (stupid Anko with her stupid anti-swearing, hypocritical rules) if she didn't pass this test. It was bad enough that Sasuke-teme had scoffed at the possibility of her graduating before his almighty duck-butt highness had, but to be doubted even by Iruka and Hokage-jiji was a little disappointing, even if she did have Anko's full confidence. She quickly shook her head clear of the thought. She would simply have to prove them that she could do this so they could be proud of her. She wouldn't let Anko's training and her own hard work be for nothing. With a newfound determination, Naruto sat a little straighter in her seat and shoved her hands into her trench coat pockets, ignoring all of the curious glances the older kids sent her way.

"Uzumaki Naruto?"

Said girl paled a bit, newfound determination lost, before sending a quick prayer up to Kami.

* * *

Iruka paused in his lecture about the fundamentals of chakra to glance at the clock hanging on the wall. _12 o'clock_ he noted _Naruto should be testing some time right now. _Shaking himself, the instructor proceeded to send his class, Naruto's normal class, outside for lunch.

He wished that Naruto hadn't insisted on taking the early graduation. He would hate to see her be disappointed, especially with all the work she had apparently put into it from the look of her new 'sensei'. The scarred faced man blushed a bit at the thought of his last and only encounter with the strange kunoichi. She really was quite attractive…

"I-Iruka-sensie?" Iruka jumped tow feet into the air before whirling around to face the shyest, paled eyed girl in his class.

"Oh," his voice cracked, "Hinata-chan. What do you need?" Iruka wiped a quick hand across his nose and gave a silent thank you that there was no blood.

"U-u-um, I was w-wondering where N-naruto-chan was." The silent girl pressed her index fingers together nervously. _Of course _Iruka sighed. He honestly had no idea how Naruto, the loud and boisterous girl she was, had managed to befriend the single most shy girl in his class and probably the only known one in all of her clans history, Hyuuga Hinata.

"Oh, don't worry Hinata," he smiled warmly, "Naruto is just taking a test somewhere else so she won't be here today." Hinata was probably the only friend Naruto had in her entire class, and the same could be said for the Hyuuga. They were most definitely two of a kind.

"A-a-are you talking a-about the gennin e-exams sensei?" Hinata questioned softly. Iruka blinked down at the girl in surprise.

"Actually yes Hinata-chan, she is. How did you know?"The girl's eyes widened a fraction before she ducked her head down to the floor.

"Um N-neji-san talks about it a-a-a lot." With a small smile, Hinata turned to look out the Academy window that her one friend would normally be either sleeping or goofing off in. "I really h-h-hope she does w-well…"

Iruka sighed and turned back to his desk to begin grading papers, Naruto's almost painfully absent. _Me too Hinata, me too…_

* * *

Mitirashi Anko tapped her foot impatiently as she stood outside the Academy gates. Glancing at her watch _again _she saw that it had only moved one more minute up. The glare she directed at it was so fierce that she was mildly surprised that the mere force of it hadn't sent the watch spinning at out of control. Instead it ticked along slowly making its way around the circle, seeming to grow slower just to spite her.

Giving a low growl Anko resumed her pacing in front of the gate. Naruto had to have been tested already. It was already 2 o'clock for Kami's sake! Anko chose to ignore the fact that any graduates or otherwise had yet to be seen, and instead chose to focus on the fact that she was standing here, surrounded by other annoying families, waiting to either congratulate or coddle their children in probably the most annoying way ever she internally noted, pacing anxiously for her aniki's results.

Anko suddenly scoffed. She was _anxious! _She had faced and completed dozens, even a hundred assassinations without blinking an eye yet here she was biting her nails in anticipation like a freaking wet-behind-the-ears gennin!

The ill-tempered woman was brought out of her musings as a shout echoed from inside the halls of the Academy. Anko rushed past the other mothers and fathers to the front of the gate to see if she could spot her little sister. No sooner had she done so that a flying blur of blonde knocked her to the ground with a yelp and began shouting what seemed to be unintelligible sentences right into her aching eardrums.

"! I'mafreakinggenninididit! Ican' I-"

Naruto's excited rambling were cut short as a hand roughly clamped down over her overly eager mouth.

"I swear," Anko hissed, "If you say 'I did it' that fast and that many times in one second again I will personally make sure you can never do it again." Despite the clear, almost death threat, the blonde continued to beam at her nee-chan.

"Anko-nee look!" The girl jabbed furiously at her neck where a gleaming hit-aite with a black band was proudly tied. Anko's expression switched from annoyed to overjoyed in one second flat as she pulled her 'little sister' into a fierce, Naruto would say deadly, embrace.

"I told you, you could do it!" Naruto, though she was slowly losing oxygen, beamed at the clearly proud tone in Anko's voice. Breaking away from the hug the blonde gave a sheepish smile. "Yeah well, I wouldn't have been able to do it without you or Dog-san."

Anko scoffed and tussled Naruto's hair before replying. "I bet you would've found some way to graduate brat. You're just too stubborn for your own good." Naruto blushed a bit at the, what seemed to be at least, compliment and rubbed the back of her head. She opened her mouth to retort but was cut off as a shout was heard over the rest of the chattering families.

"Naruto!" Said girl turned back towards the Academy to see Iruka jogging up towards them and as he approached, Naruto gave her now _former _academy instructor a friendly wave and greeting.

"Hiya Iruka-sensei!" The scarred man turned his wary gaze from Anko to Naruto, his eyes widening comically and being immediately drawn to the band around her neck.

"Naruto, y-you did it!" Naruto giggled. Iruka did a very convincing impression of a fish out of water.

"Yeah," Anko rubbed her ear with a pained expression, "she wouldn't stop shouting those exact words until I threatened her with the loss of her tongue." Not sure if the purple haired woman was actually being serious, Iruka ignored the comment and turned back to his favorite prankster who was slightly red with embarrassment.

"Naruto I'm so proud of you!" The blonde was once again swept into a hug not quite as bone crushing for passing the exam.

She smiled at the man. "Thank you Iruka-sensei." The man set her down and gave her a small chuckle. "I guess this means I owe you an apology huh Naru-chan?" He bent down to the gennin's level and laid a large calloused hand on her head, tousling it affectionately like most do. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you. You will make an amazing ninja." The girl's smile became even wider as she basked in the rare praise from the stern teacher.

"Thanks sensei." Naruto smiled at the man. She had done her best to make all of her friends and family proud and had succeeded, that was enough for her. Though, the hitaite was a very nice bonus as well.

Anko nudged Naruto in the side gently, reminding her of their graduation plans. Naruto gave a quick nod in her directiong before facing Iruka once again. "Sorry sensei but I've got to go with Anko-nee." The girl smiled again, "We're going to celebrate." The man raised a brown brow at the new title for the snake mistress but chose to ignore it in favor of Naruto.

"Alright Naruto, just remember that you have to be at the Academy tomorrow for your team assignments got it?"

Anko waved a dismissing hand while she gently pushed guided Naruto out of the now mostly empty courtyard. "Yeah we know. Blah, blah, blah." Irkua glared a bit at the woman before hid face became bright red and he swiftly turned away. "I'll make sure she gets there on time don't worry." Iruka just gave a small nod of confirmation and hurried off in the opposite direction with a 'good luck' thrown over his shoulder at Naruto.

"Well," Anko shot grin at her younger counterpart. "Are you ready to have some fun?"

* * *

**A/N: **Yeah so that took a while to get out, but I hope you guys like it. So what it it took two months? But anyway, I wouldn't expect many updates, in fact i haven't even started the next chapter unfourtunately. That combined with the fact that I'm starting the dreaded junior year in high means that it could take a while.

Pleases review everyone! It really makes writing a story worthwhile and I would really like to hear what you guys think. Oh and I would really like to thank everyone who has reviewed and favotited the story so far! You guys are the greatest!


	6. Chapter 6

Onto the next installment of _Ashes. _I must say I am really rather proud of my title. It's mysteriously short and reveals absolutley nothing about my story! Just how I like it. I thought of it when reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets when Dumbledore was talking about the Pheonix being reborn from it's ashes. I thought it was cool, so I used it for the hero of my story, being reborn from the previous hero's ashes. If you don't know the two that I'm talking about you either completely skipped my first chapter, or you are insanely stupid to the lowest degree. Either way, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

**Disclaimer:** (Raises hand) Anyone else hate doing these? Anyone? No, for all those bureaucratic idiots who are looking to sue, I Anonymous, do not own Naruto. Happy?

* * *

**Chapter Six**

**Team Three… Yay?**

She was drifting comfortably on fluffy clouds filled with ramen bowls as far as the eye could see. The delicious smell wafted through her nose, causing her mouth to water at the aroma. It was just too good to be true! Thinking for a moment on that thought, the whiskered blonde shook her head. It wasn't possible to dream of something in such detail. To dream of each and every slippery noodle and shimmering broth filled bowls. It just wasn't possible so ergo, this had to be some sort of beautiful reality.

"Naruto…"

The blonde turned her head to find the most beautiful thing she had ever witnessed in her entire ten years of life calling her name. A giant ramen bowl filled with enough of her favorite flavor to last her entire life (or fifteen minutes) drifted lazily towards her whispering her name.

"Naruto…up…"

Nauto tilted her head in confusion. _Up? _

"…uto…wake…p…"

The girl's eyes glazed over. Oh well, it didn't really matter what the giant ramen bowl was saying. She was sure it tasted delicious anyway.

"Naru…ke up!"

Naruto licked her lips and reached for the fatty noodles. She was so close to the best ramen ever. Just a little more…

"UZUMAKI NARUTO GET YOUR SKINNY ASS OUT OF BED BEFORE I YOU GET SOME ONE ON ONE TIME WITH MAI!"

Naruto gave a shrill shriek (force of habit whenever the 'M' name was said) and shot up out of bed, arms flailing, only to be met with the infuriated face of Mitirashi Anko.

"Anko-nee!" The girl slumped forward and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. "What the heck are you doing?"

The purple haired ninja gave a sort of growl/snort before answering. "Other than trying to wake up you lazy butt for over five minutes while having to avoid being eaten by said lazy butt hmmm not much." Anko stepped back from the bed and began to examine her fingernails in the I-know-something-but-you'll-have-to-figure-it-out-on-your-own pose that Naruto had grown to be very familiar with.

Raising a suspicious eyebrow Naruto continued. "So you just came to wake me up at," she glanced at the clock on her bedside table, "6:00 on a Saturday morning just because?" Anko began to tap her chin in fake bemusement, just to annoy her no doubt.

"Well there might have been a little something about teams or graduating gennin or such this morning at exactly 7:00 but," she shrugged, "I didn't apparently pay attention when my sensei told me about it."

Naruto gave the kunoichi a bewlildered look as her nee-chan raised an expectant eyebrow. What the heck was that supposed to mean? Yawning the girl lied back down and burrowed herself under her sheets. _Maybe if I just lay here she'll go away…_

Anko meanwhile returned to examining her fingernails while counting silently in her head. Three…Two…One-

"HOLY SHITOCKY MUSHROOMS! IT'S TEAM ASSIGNMENTS!" The sheets were flung from the bed as Naruto sprinted with blinding speed to the bathroom, leaving Anko whistling innocently in the middle of the small apartment.

-SNUS-

"You know, you could have told me to begin with…" Naruto sulked down the road next Anko on her way to the Academy.

"Oh stop whining," she waved her hand in dismissal of the accusation. "And besides, one: I was going to until you decided to try and eat my arm in your sleep and two: It's much more fun to let you figure it out on your own."

"Hey," the blonde protested, "you can't blame me for my actions while I'm asleep!"

The kunoichi shot her a nasty smile. "Sure I can, you're still the one who's doing it."

Naruto just huffed. Leave it to the nee-chan to have some severely twisted logic. Seeking to distract herself, Naruto took to observing the civilians around her with a little more curiosity than usual. They had been acting differently for a while now, but the blonde just couldn't put her finger on it. Maybe it was the fact that replacing the heated glares or cold indifferent gazes that the villager's face usually adorned, were small fearful glances in the direction of the one and only Anko. What Naruto found even funnier was the fact that none of the glances rested on Anko too long. It was almost like they believed that if the looks lasted just a second longer, Anko would explode hissing and spitting fire at them with her snakes nipping at their heels.

She gave a small snicker at the mental picture. Anko probably would do it too. It turns out, Anko-nee really had a talent at scarring the pants off of people; especially fruit vendor managers who throw stones at little blonde ten year olds. She scares them the best.

"Hey brat," Anko nudged the daydreaming blonde with her elbow, "you do realize we've been standing at the Academy entrance for a while now, right?"

"Huh?" was the girl's intelligent reply.

"We," Anko tone turned condescendingly sweet as she articulated slowly, "are at the A-C-A-D-E-M-Y now."

Naruto perked up and smiled. "Really?" She looked ahead and sure enough, there the school was in all of its boring glory. "That was fast." But even as she stared at the building ahead of her, Naruto couldn't force herself to go in just yet. There was a nagging worry at the pit of her stomach that caused her normally effortless grin to become strained.

Anko merely rolled her eyes at the girl, mistaking her hesitance as nerves. "Yeah well, I've got to go to T&I now sooo," she gave Naruto a cheery smile and a two fingered salute, "See ya!" And then proceeded to disappear in a swirl of leaves.

Naruto stood just staring wide-eyed at the now empty space before marching off to the entrance, muttering under her breath. "I forgot to get her to teach me that…"

Racing through the same bland old hallways she stopped in front of the only room that had noise and chatter floating through the closed door. _This is it. _Feeling her excitement and the nagging feeling to rise, Naruto smacked the on widest grin she possibly could, flung the door open, and strode confidently into the room…only to be immediately assaulted with deafening silence and the curious stare of every twelve year old in the room.

_Wow, _Naruto's grin faltered as the silence continued to stretch on, _tough crowd I guess. _

"Hey," Naruto looked up as a boy with plain spiky brown hair stood from somewhere in the back, "why's the blonde midget here?" Said midget scowled as the boys grin turned cocky enough to rival the Uchiha's. Now he turned to address the youngest person in the class. "Did ya get lost midget?"

By this pint the girl was giving him her patented and improved, courtesy of Anko, 'Death by Glare' look. Naruto pointedly ignored the fact that the brown haired boy seemed to be unaffected and was still smirking at her.

"In case you're not only blind but stupid," she hissed, "this pretty little thing currently hanging around my neck, is a Hitaite. You know, the ones given to _graduates._" Naruto felt a sliver of satisfaction as the kid's face morphed from a smirk into fish impersonation, a rather good one too if she did say so herself.

"No way!"

"A munchkin like her passed?"

"Yeah," Naruto jumped three feet in the air as a new voice interrupted the classes muttering from behind her. "And you all better shut up and park it before I decide to reintroduce you to Yuki." At the word Yuki, whatever that was, the sensei gave a cruel grin as the color drained out of every gennin's face, excluding Naruto of course. The brown haired kid, who Naruto kindly dubbed 'Impudent moron who dared insult the future Hokage' or Moron for short, actually gave a shiver before shrinking lower in his seat.

The blonde shot a wary look over her shoulder before taking an empty seat in the front of the classroom. "Now," the shinobi began, "Each of you know why you are here. That hitaite you wear is not just for decoration. It marks you as a proud ninja of Konohagakure."

Naruto smiled proudly. Dang right she was a ninja! "But you are dirt." And that pride was promptly shattered into a million tiny, miniscule pieces. "You are the lowest of the low in the eyes of everyone in the village. And it doesn't end there. The dangers rise and you will come face to face with death and kill in the name of our village. For those of you who aim for honor and glory I will tell you now," he paused and scanned the room with hardened eyes. "This life in anything but that. It is a dirty and filthy life that you won't be able to escape once you start. So I will make this perfectly clear." His mouth set in a grim line; he waved his hand at the door, still hanging slightly ajar. "If you cannot handle this reality, then leave."

Dead silence filled the classroom. Not one person stood up to leave, all of them with the same determination set in their minds. Naruto gazed directly into eyes of the sensei who raised an expectant eyebrow in response, as if daring her to stay.

A feral grin split her face, and her eyes sparkled with anticipation, the unspoken challenge hanging in the air. _Bring it. _

After a moment more of quiet he continued. _"_Alright then." Lowering his hand Naruto could see the faintest of smiles tug on the corners of his mouth. "It is my honor to officially congratulate you as gennin of Konoha."

At this last comment half of the class gave a loud whoop of joy, Naruto included as well as Moron. But before anyone could really start a celebration, the sensei spoke up again.

"Alright gennin, shut your yaps while I call your teams and sensei's. Once I do you will wait until they come to pick you up." Turning around for only a second, he snatched a scroll off of his desk and proceeded to call out names.

"Team One will be Shikushi…" Naruto gave a wide yawn. This was going to take a while obviously and she hadn't had the most pleasant wakeup call this morning either, stupid nee-chan. Dropping her head onto the desk, her eyelids began to slide shut, needing no prompting from the blonde to do so. Shaking off the ever present worry, the girl dozed. She might as well take a page out of Shikimaru's book for the time being.

"…and Uzumaki Naruto will make up team three. Your sensei will be Namishida Haruka." Naruto was startled awake by not only her name, but also the loud thud from behind her that accompanied it.

Turning around, she spotted Moron repeatedly banging his head on the desk mumbling under his breath just loud enough for her to hear. "Great…just _flipping _fantastic! I get stuck with the most aggravating and only two blondes in our entire bloody class. The pompous jerk and the baby. Just freakin' great…" The mumbling continued at the same pace as the thumping of his head.

The latter blonde's eyebrows shot to her hairline as the meaning of his words sunk in. _Crap, _she thought, her sky high mood quickly shooting back down to earth and crash landing. _I'm stuck with Moron of all people! _Inwardly groaning at the chaos that fact alone would bring, Naruto scanned the room to look for any other signs of her second, and apparently fellow blonde, teammate that she had missed in the previous roll call. _Damn Naras…_

Unfortunately she found him not long after.

Sitting on the top row closest to the doorway, sat a boy with pale blonde hair and deep brown eyes. She knew it was him because for one he was the only other blonde in the room, and two (also the reason for the 'unfortunate' sighting of him) he was glaring with every fiber of his being he could possibly muster at Moron, seemingly trying to not just put a hole in his head, but turn him into nothing more than a pile of smoldering ashes.

Naruto closed her eyes and breathed in a good few deep breaths to steady herself and give her time to examine her team situation with a calm, cool head. Really, it couldn't be as bad as she thought it was. All this meant was that her new gennin team was made up of one moron who apparently hated both of his teammates, two blondes wanting to kill the former moron, whilst the youngest blonde still didn't know what to make of the elder blonde who was still trying in a vain attempt to kill the previously stated moron by glaring.

This time the resounding and unmistakable thud of a head hitting the desk came from Uzumaki Naruto as she let out a groan of despair. Oh dear Kami she hoped her sensei had at least a semblance of normalcy to bring to the surely dysfunctional trio.

"Team Three?"

Naruto's head snapped up from the cool surface of the table to see the owner of the soft spoken question. Standing in the middle of the doorway was a young looking kunoichi with dark, almost violet, long raven hair tied into a ponytail and soft green eyes that, while they seemed to be normally very calm, were rapidly scanning the room.

"Ah," the chunnin teacher smiled and gestured for the jounin to enter, "Namishida-san. You're a bit early but I just finished calling out your team's name so you're free to take them." The now confirmed sensei of team three spared a small smile for the chunnin before turning back to the class and speaking once more.

"I'm here for team three, if you would please follow me." Her eyes fell onto Naruto for a split second, and the girl felt herself stiffen, waiting for the inevitable. But her eyes soon left Naruto's face, and the jounin turned and strode out of the room just as quiet as she had entered, without a word or changed expression. Sneaking a quick glance behind her, Naruto caught both Moron and Glare (for lack of a better suiting nickname. She'd have to work on that later) standing up and begin to make their way forward.

Not wanting to be left behind and feeling some of her worry alleviate, Naruto hopped up from her seat and followed the two boys outside where their sensei stood waiting for them. Now that they were out in the sunlight, Naruto took the time to better examine her sensei, Namishida if she remembered. The kunoichi's hair actually did appear to be a dark violet, reminding Naruto a bit of Hinata-chan's own hair a bit. She wore a simple long-sleeved green shirt that clung to her body and ended with a bit of a flare at the wrists complimented by an equally boring pair of black kunoichi shorts that had a couple of weapon pouches strapped to either side.

Over all, the sight of the elite jounin was rather… boring if she was to be honest. She wasn't the overwhelming warrior of the leaf village Naruto would have expected to come blazing onto a battle field. In fact, Naruto would almost say she was underwhelming with her soft face and kind eyes.

Before she could think further the woman clapped her hands together and gave the three kids a warm smile. "Before we get to know each other how about we go somewhere more private?" Naruto glanced at the two boys, who were now obviously too engrossed in glaring at each other to response, before shrugging her own shoulders in reply.

"Great!" Namishida turned around and once again set off in leaving her new gennin to follow after her. Naruto glanced to the boys on either side of her, still glaring at each other, and sighed before following after her. After a few minutes of walking the group was led into a small clearing that was near the Academy training grounds. It had a few trees spread out here and there in the middle of the training field that provided a little bit of shade, but was overall empty save for three small tree stumps jutting out of the ground.

"Well," Namishida turned and smiled to the three kids before indicating the ground in front of them, "take a seat and we'll get to know each other. You know likes, dislikes, interests."

"Well," Naruto started as they all sat on the ground, "why don't you start sensei?"

Namishida gave a kind smile. "Sure. My name is Namishida Haruka, or Haruka-sensei to you three. I like my cat, sushi, and my friends. I dislike those who have no faith in others and are bias. My hobbies include reading and training. And my dream is to raise a team who can become the best and make Konoha proud." At this Haruka-sensei turned a fond gaze over her three students sitting in front of her. "You're turn, Yamanaka-san if I'm no mistaken."

The now revealed Yamanaka nodded before speaking. "My name is Yamanaka Shinji. I like my family, genjustu and learning new techniques. I dislike annoying morons who don't know what's good for them," cue sneer in, rightly dubbed, Moron's direction. "My hobbies include gardening-" a snort from the brown haired gennin was awarded another glare from the Yamanaka, "and training. My dream is to surpass my cousin as the best Yamanaka interrogator in the leaf village."

"Yeah now that the sissy is done it's my turn!" Moron beamed and jabbed a thumb at his chest. "The name's Zuki Satoshi! I like fighting, my sister, and food in general. I dislike arrogant, stuck-up, rude, I'm-so-much-better-than-you pricks," cue the continuing glare war between the two boy gennin, "My hobbies include fighting, training, and hanging out with my sister. My dream is to become the first ninja in my family." If Satoshi heard the mutter of 'not likely' from the other boy, he chose to ignore it.

"And you?" Haruka turned to her last, and only female student, giving her an encouraging smile.

"Well I'm Uzumaki Naruto-"

She was interrupted by a rather loud snort from Moron. "Fishcake? Your name means fishcake?"

Naruto turned a fierce scowl at the boy, her new mantra as of today repeating in her thoughts, _I must not kill my teammates, I must not kill my teammates…_

"It means Maelstrom baka." She ignored his ever present smirk, and continued. "As I was _saying, _my name is Uzumaki Naruto! I like my nee-chan and Dog-san, training, and ramen. I dislike the three minutes it takes for ramen to cook, and people who judge others for no reason." At this, though no one noticed it, Haruka's eyes darkened slightly in sadness, before flashing back to their normal serene green. "My hobbies include training, gardening-" Satoshi gave a snicker and shot a sly smile over to the other boy, "and playing pranks. And my dream is to be the first and greatest female Hokage ever!"

"You? Hokage? Ha that's a joke." Naruto felt heat creep up her neck causing her face to flush red at his laughter.

"No more a joke than you actually being a successful ninja." Shinja shot back at him from the other side of the whiskered girl and she tried to figure out whether or not she should be offended or grateful for the comment.

"I have a better chance at that than you do at getting a girlfriend blondie."

"I wouldn't be talking moron."

"Prissy"

"Baka"

"Oh yeah you airheaded basta- ouch!"

The steady stream of insults was cut off as Haruka-sensei flicked both boys in the middle of their foreheads. "Are both of you done yet?"

"Yes Haruka-sensei…" both boys chorused, rubbing at their new matching red spots.

"Good. Now that we've gotten to know each other, I can tell you about the survival training tomorrow."

Naruto's eye's snapped back to their sensei in shock. "Survival training? We already did that in school sensei."

Haruka-sensei gave a nod in confirmation. "Yes you have, but this survival training's a little different."

"How's it different?" Satoshi questioned.

The youngest gennin could've sworn Haruka's soft smile turned slightly sadistic at the question and she shivered. She had seen that look enough times on Anko to know that whatever she was thinking about was probably not good. But as soon as it had come, the look passed and Naruto doubted her other two teammates had noticed it.

"This training is too determine whether or not you all become genin."

"WHAT!" The jounin winced as all three genin shrieked.

"B-but I thought that we're already genin sensei," Shinji stammered out, his eyes widening in shock. "We took the Academy test and passed!"

Haruka's face softened out and gave a small laugh, as if she had just heard a funny joke. "You might have passed the Academy test, but that was to weed out the hopeless. If that was honestly all you needed to know to become a ninja then half of the civilian population would be passing."

Shinji looked horror stuck while Satoshi just looked confused. "So we're…_not_ genin yet?" He asked.

"No you baka," the other boy snapped, "Sensei just told us that for the heck of it. It doesn't concern us at all." His voice dripped with such heavy sarcasm that not even Moron could miss it.

"I was just askin' ya teme!"

"Well you wouldn't have to if you weren't so slow."

"Look who's talkin' blondie."

"Again with the blonde quip, you've really got to get a new insult dobe."

"Oh yeah-"

"Ouch!" Again both Satoshi and Shinji who had stood up and were almost touching noses with how close they had been standing, fell back when Haruka flicked them again in the head. Giving a small sigh, the jounin stood up and dusted herself off before addressing her not-yet students.

"If you're done now, I'd like for you all to go home and rest. Meet me here tomorrow at seven in the morning and come prepared; cause it's going to be a long day." She turned and walked for a few steps away from the group before turning around and adding another statement as an afterthought. "Oh and you might not want to eat. That is unless you _want_ to taste your breakfast a second time."

On that note, Haruka formed a hand sign and disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

"Aw man," Naruto whined, "my new sensei knows that move too?"

Rolling his eyes at the younger girl's antics, Satoshi stood up gave another glare at each of his fellow genin. "Well as much as I would like to hang out with the teme and the baby, I've got to go home home now."

"Yes please leave," Shinji smirked standing up as well, "I wouldn't want to be contaminated with your stupidity."

Fuming, Moron opened his mouth to retort before closing it when nothing came out. Whipping around, he stalked off the training grounds and headed home without another glance backwards.

Shinji smiled victoriously at finally winning an argument with the spiky brown haired boy before glancing down at the still sitting girl beside him, his face shifting into a more neutral look. "See you tomorrow." With that he strode in the same direction as Satoshi, leaving the blonde alone in the clearing.

"Well," Naruto thought out loud, "that went well." Bored, and with nothing better to do, the girl flopped on her back and lay down in the middle of the field, staring up at the bright sun shining directly above her. She closed her eyes as a wind started up blowing her hair over her face, her thoughts drifting back to her first encounter with her team.

She supposed it could've gone worse. With her sensei in that is; she was fairly certain by the sympathetic looks she now remembered the other students giving her after her team had been called out that they didn't not want to be in her place. It was apparent that the two boys did not get along, and even that was an understatement. To her, Shinji didn't seem all that bad, if not just a little aloof and a high-and-mighty attitude. That might just be from the fact that he came from a clan though. Satoshi on the other hand was plain rude and arrogant; underestimating her like that. He even dared mock her goal!

Her mouth lifted into the smallest of smiles however at the thought of her sensei. She was definitely not what she had expected. The woman gave off a calming aura and her eyes were kind and soft, giving her an overall motherly kind of look. But that wasn't what really got to the whiskered girl. It was the fact that when the woman had first heard her name and saw her, she didn't glare or flinch or anything of the sort; she had looked at her with the exact same soft expression she had with her teammates, and that had earned Naruto's immediate respect and admiration.

Naruto had waited for the harsh eyes, expected the cold indifference to start, for the woman to realize and see exactly what every other civilian saw in her that caused them to hate her, but her sensei never did.

Not many adults had given her the simple act of acceptance, and the fact that Naruto had gotten one of the few that would made the day and the future prospect of suffering with her teammates worth it.

Naruto smiled. She had found another precious person.

-SNUS-

Namishida Haruka watched from the foliage of the surrounding forest as her students trickled off from the clearing one by one. All of them that is, except Uzumaki Naruto. Haruka watched as the girl lied down and stared up at the sky, feeling a bemused smile tug at her lips.

The girl was certainly not what she had expected. When she had first learned she was teaching the 'demon child' (her face morphed into disgust at the moniker) she had been slightly apprehensive. While she knew that the girl was free of any influence from the demon, she still did not know what to expect from a child that had faced the brunt of the villager's hate. The possibility of a happy, energetic little girl was certainly not anything that had crossed her mind.

Even now, just looking at the blonde smiling up at the sky without a worry in the world, Haruka was grateful for her fiancé's favorite saying. "'Don't judge a kunai by its holster'," she whispered, her eyes sparkling.

The girl would be great student, she had no doubt, but the other two boys were going to be the cause of Konoha's biggest headache she was certain. Those two could bicker like cats and dogs. _Oh well, _she thought her smile turning to the slightly sadistic one Naruto had spotted earlier, _I have just the thing to fix that._

With a finale glance at the now leaving blonde, Haruka flashed from the forest in the customary swirl of leaves.

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**A/N**:I am actually really proud of this chapter (the end anyway). I took a break from it in the middle for about a week cause I hit a block (again!) with the developing of my characters. And I will tell you that these characters are not skin deep. They each have a history like anyone else. For me reading a story, an OC having a really good background is what really helps to make a good story. I would feel hypocrytic if I didn't do the same. So I hope you guys will like these OCs. At first I was going to have Satoshi totally against and kinda replacing Sasuke for Naru, but then Shinji (with a mind of his own) took over and wa lah! You have the petty bickering between the two boys. Plus, I really don't think any OC can really replace the teme actions against Naru from our eemo we all know and love. (Or hate in some cases).

PLEASE REVIEW. The revies box is making me really sad and its hard to write when no one is reviewing. I promise that this story is going to get better and more serious when I get into the thick of things!


	7. Chapter 7

Hey, this chapter actually came out faster than I expected. I found it a bit easier to write, but i'm not sure about my little mini fight scene. As most of you know, this is my first Naruto fanfic and one of my first fics period, so I hope I didn't do too bad. I would reall appreciate if you guys could give me some feedback on it. Without further adue, here is the net installment of _Ashes. _

**Disclaimer**: I actually don't want to own Naruto, appart from all the money I would get obviously. I just do thid for fun :)

* * *

**Chapter Seven**

**Yuki the Demon Cat**

"You know, if you keep yawning like that a fly is gonna zip right into your mouth."

Naruto snapped her mouth shut mid-yawn and gave a bleary glare to her fellow blonde sitting a few feet in from where she lay, idly picking on a piece of dew covered grass. Choosing to ignore him for now, the girl simply groaned and sat up cross-legged.

"I can't help it," she whined, her voice still holding and undertone of sleep in it, "It's way too early to be up today." Naruto had been hoping that with her ended tutelage under Anko, the impromptu morning training sessions, or torture sessions depending on the point of view, would also come to a close, allowing her a few coveted hours of sleeping in. She had also fervently prayed that her new sensei wouldn't be too much of a morning person; maybe someone like Dog-san who could be reliably three hours late to anything but the new release of the latest Icha-Icha. Fate apparently had other plans.

From behind her she heard an unmistakable grunt of annoyance and Naruto glanced back to see Satoshi trudge into the small clearing next to the three training logs where his fellow genin sat. "Yeah well at least you weren't woken up with a face full of porridge." Satoshi scowled in Shinji's direction when the blonde let a smirk crawl its way onto his features. "Don't even," he snapped as the blonde opened his mouth to make a snide remark.

A loud grumble chose to growl from Shinji's stomach at that moment giving rise to an embarrassed flush on the gennin's face.

"Careful," Satoshi snickered this time, "I think the whole village could've been woken up by your stomach." Naruto attempted to squash her own snicker but failed miserably when the boy's stomach replied with an angry growl and a snort of laughter erupted from between the fingers cove3ring her mouth, earning her a glare from the brunette.

"Well it's good to see you three up and smiling at the world." All three gennin, not all of them smiling per-say, turned to see Namishida Haruka approach them from the entrance of the small training grounds with a much too peppy smile on her face for the early morning.

"Morning," Naruto paused to let another yawn escape, "Haruka-sensei."

"Good morning you three," she chirped in reply. "I hope you're ready to get started with the test." Haruka stopped next to the log closest to Shinji and dropped a previously unnoticed crate on the stump.

"Uh sensei, what's that?" Satoshi cast the crate a suspicious glance before turning back to Haruka.

"It's just something extra for your test that I brought," she replied smoothly. "Now, onto the instructions for the actual test." She motioned for her three students to stand in front of her while she brought out two shiny silver bells from one of her weapon pouches.

"Your goal for today is to acquire these three bells in two hours from a moving target, while I defend them. If you don't have a bell by the time I end the training you will return to the Academy where you will hopefully have better luck next year." Haruka jingled the bells for further emphasis.

"But there are only two bells," Shinji pointed out with his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Figured that out all by yourself didja?" Satoshi drawled.

"At least I pointed it out. You probably didn't even notice."

"Yeah well-"

"Yes Shinji," Haruka cut both boys off with a stern look, "I'm glad you noticed." Shinji smirked triumphantly at the other boy who was looking pointedly at the ground. "There are only two bells because one of you will be headed back to the Academy."

"WHAT?" Naruto cried. "Only two people pass? But that's not fair!" If anyone was likely to fail, it would be her. She knew the other gennin were far more advanced than her with their two extra years of experience.

"Life's not fair kid," Satoshi stated with a smug grin. Apparently the same thought had occurred to him as well.

"So who will the target with the bells be?" Shinji questioned. "I don't see anyone else here and you said that you would be guarding the person yourself."

Haruka nodded her head, a smile spreading across her features. "You're correct, I won't be the one with the bells. Yuki will."

Both Shinji and Satoshi went pale at the name and each began to splutter incoherently. "Y-Yuki!" Satoshi squeaked. "You mean the demon cat of class 6 Yuki?"

Haruka blinked owlishly. "Oh, you already know her?"

"Know her? That _thing _tried to claw my face off!"

Haruka smiled and dismissed the boy's panicked expression with a wave of her hand. "Well if you already know her, then you'll know that this test isn't going to be easy." The woman reached over to the small crate resting on the training log and unlatched it grabbing for something inside, presumably Yuki. What she pulled out was a small black cat with a curious nick in its left ear and slit yellow eyes. The cat didn't protest as it was moved around and held like rag doll in the older woman's arms.

"That's Yuki?" Naruto asked looking at the submissive cat. "We're going to be chasing around a cat?" The girl's face split into a triumphant grin. "This is going to be a piece of cake!"

Haruka gave a small smile before tying on the silver bells to the cat's collar. "I wouldn't be so sure Naru. If you want even a hope for passing this test then you're going to have to go all out." Satoshi and Shinji both tensed as Haruka lowered the black cat to the ground, but didn't release it. "Five seconds after I release Yuki, you all can begin."

As soon as the hands around the cat's torso were removed, Yuki's calm demeanor shattered and with a furious yowl the cat shot off into the woods, leaving a gaping blonde and two shaking boys in it's wake.

The green-eyed woman smiled knowingly at the quaking gennin. "You guys can now begin," and the jounin flashed out of view.

Naruto shook herself out of her shock and turned to her side to find both boys had already taken off after the cat. Frowning, the girl turned and raced off into the woods where the cat had last disappeared to.

* * *

"Here kitty, kitty!" Naruto cupped her hands around her mouth and called out for the wayward cat. "Here kitty, kitty!" Naruto stomped her way across the forests surrounding the training grounds calling futilely for the black monster.

The girl started as she heard a strangled yelp of pain from somewhere to her far right. _Probably that evil demon in an innocent cat's skin _she thought bitterly. She had taken back every previous notion of the cat being a harmless hunk of hair. It was surely the devil incarnate.

Wincing a bit, she rubbed the long scratch running down the length of her arm that the_ thing _had gifted her with courtesy a failed snatching attempt. She thought it was actually kind of sad that their sensei hadn't even needed to intervene to save the cat yet. No one had even come close to catching the fiend; it was just too fast. Sure she had caught up to thing, but as soon as she got within grabbing distance, the cat would dart of in another direction completely avoiding her would-be-captors.

Naruto's foot paused in its decent as the unmistakable yowl sounded from her left. Turning fully in the direction of the noise, she shuffled a little further when a black blur burst from the bush, claws open and flailing in every direction. Unfortunately one of those directions happened to be Naruto's face.

"AHHH!" Naruto let loose a scream that rang out through the entire forest, shaking and grabbing at her for the demon cat wildly. "GET IT OFF!"

Yuki, for once, seemed to have listened to the command and nimbly leapt off of the writhing blonde's face to the ground, before dashing back into the foliage before Naruto had time to collect herself.

"Naru-" Shinji came running out from the same spot that Yuki had emerged from, calling out the girl's name before abruptly halting. Before him on the ground was Naruto, crouched down and covering her face with her hands. Giving a sigh Shinji thought on how best to approach the situation. He knew enough from babysitting his own niece, Ino, that girls could start bawling at the tiniest of injuries. And if those large, swelled up scratches on Naruto's face and her current posture were any indication, the blonde would be erupting into a mountain of tears before long.

What happened next, however, completely shocked the boy. Naruto snapped up from her crouched position, furious fire burning in her eyes hot enough to melt a kunai. That combined with the disheveled state of her hair, it was sticking up every which way and had clumps of dirt and stray twigs sticking out of it, she looked like a manifestation of a woman's wrath. "That- that, THING! Oh it is on! That little furball is going to be stripped, skewered, and castrated a thousand times over. When I'm done with the monster, it'll look like a naked mole rat crossed with an ugly piece of pink turd. It's going to lose all of its nine lives in one go-"

Shinji took a wary step back at the unexpected, and very violent, outburst from the small innocent blue eyed ten year old. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, er scratched, indeed," he mumbled to himself his eyes widening as Naruto's rants grew in violence and imagination.

"Uzumaki." No reaction. "Usumaki-san." She was still shouting, louder than before if he wasn't mistaken. "KID!" he yelled.

"WHAT!" Naruto whipped around to find none other than Yamanaka Shinji standing behind her, red in the face and fists clenched at his sides. "Well?" She questioned.

"Are you finished?" the boy asked, leveling a dry look at her and lifting one brow. Naruto's face went scarlet at his comment. He had actually heard all that? That stuff was some of Anko's favorite torture techniques for people that annoyed her and the images were not for the faint of heart. Still blushing, the girl lowered her gaze and gave and mumbled out, "…yeah."

Shinji just nodded still feeling a bit weary of the small girl after what he had just witnessed. "Good then. Did you manage to grab one of the bells from Yuki?"

Naruto gave the boy a confused look before her eyes widened in realization. "Oh…" she rubbed the back of her head sheepishly and gave a weak smile. "I kinda forgot about that sooo…. No. Not exactly."

Shinji resisted the urge to face-palm at his teammate's admittance. "The cat practically jumps into your grasp, and you don't grab a bell?"

"Eh, no?" She replied nervously. "It was kinda hard to remember that sort of thing when you're having your face _clawed off._"

Allowing another heavy sigh to escape, Shinji glanced at where the cat had disappeared to before looking back at the young girl, her scratches turning an angry inflated red. "Well, we better go find that cat then."

Naruto gapped at the boy stupidly. "We?" He couldn't possibly mean the two of them, could he?

"Well yeah, Yuki is proving too fast to catch by one person, so if we team up we could probably weasel her out or into a corner."

Naruto stayed frozen a second more before flashing Shinji a mega-watt smile and dashing into the trees.

"She went the other way." Naruto jumped right back out of the trees and took off in the direction Shinji's finger was pointing, leaving him to follow after the hyper-active blonde. Rolling his eyes, Shinji took off and in a few short bounds caught up with the smaller gennin. "So we need a plan to catch Yuki."

"Plan. How 'bout we just run until we catch her. I'm sure between the two of us we can get her," Naruto grinned confidently.

Shinji again had to resist the urge to smack himself silly. "That's not a plan kid. That's called winging it."

Naruto gave an unconcerned shrug. "Eh, same thing."

"How about we actually come up with something that might actually work."

The girl scowled. "Fine. Don't need to be so mean about it."

Shinji pretended not to hear her. "Ok then." He pulled on the sleeve of the girl's black trench coat to stop her next to him. "I know you already know how to do the kamwari right?"

Naruto gave an indignant squawk. "Of course I know how. I wouldn't have been able to graduate otherwise."

"Ok then, what we're going to do is as soon as I get close enough to Yuki, I'm going to switch with her. Once I do you need to grab the bells." After waiting for the blonde to nod her head in confirmation, Shinji set back on tracking the cat.

They duo traveled in silence for the next few minutes that passed by. Naruto glanced to her left where Shinji was jogging along side her and examined all that she knew about him. So far, Shinji was her favorite (though she only had two to begin with) teammate. She had expected him to be at least a little snobbish being from a ninja clan and all, heck Ino was for sure, but he only seemed to act rude towards Satoshi, which she didn't have a problem with at all. He didn't even look down on her for being a whole two years younger and less experienced. He was aloof though, at best.

"Hey Shinji." Said boy looked to the side at his teammate's inquiry.

"Yeah," he replied.

"Why did you choose to team up with me?" The boy faltered a bit at her blunt question, not expecting it. "I mean, I'm two years younger and Satoshi probably has more experience."

"Well," he began, "besides the fact that I wouldn't willingly team up with that dobe if it were the last thing I do, you must be some good if you managed to graduate from the Academy early." Naruto blushed at the praise.

She hesitated before asking her next question. "Well then why don't you get along with Mo- Satoshi?" Shinji's face, which had become more relaxed as the talked, turned stone stiff and his eyes hardened on the trail ahead of them, refusing to look back at the startled girl.

"That's none of your business." Naruto blinked, her mouth slightly open, before letting his reply drop, and an uncomfortable silence hang over them. He obviously didn't want to talk about whatever made the two boys enemies and she wasn't about to pry that closet open.

A few more minutes passed in silence before Naruto's face brightened and she pointed out joyfully in front of them. "Look Shinji! It's the demon!" Ahead of them, stretching out in the sun, lay the black devil herself, teasing the group with his laxness. She began to cackle maniacally in her head. _Dumb cat. I'll show you heh heh_

"Naruto get ready," Shinji addressed the girl, "I'm going to switch." He flashed through the hand signs before calling out '**Kamwari'** and suddenly Shinji now longer stood in front of her, but a small dazed looking black cat did.

"Gotcha!" Naruto dove towards the cat, the silver bells glinting off of its collar. She was within a few inches of it when a mound of earth shot of from the ground meeting her head on.

_Thud!_

Naruto groaned painfully and delicately held her throbbing head in her hands. Opening a single eye, she spotted Haruka-sensei lounging against one of the closer tree trunks in the shade, idly picking at her nails.

"That was totally cheating sensei," Shinji glared at the woman striding up to her.

Sensei gave a warm smile before disappearing, presumably, back into the trees to guard the wayward cat. Unfortunately, the two gennin did something that was rather unadvised to do in the shinobi business. They presumed.

Without a warning, Haruka reappeared behind Naruto, a kunai held at her throat. The girl froze in shock unable to do anything. Shinji reacted fast, thanks to home training, and flung a kunai in the direction of their sensei. His eyes widened, however, when Naruto was shifted in front of Haruka, directly in the line of fire of his kunai.

Before he could shout out a warning to the girl, both Haruka and Naruto flashed out of sight, reappearing next to the Yamanaka boy. Haruka set the quivering girl down in front of her before addressing her other student. Shinji felt a shiver go up his spine at the steel in Haruka's normally warm green eyes.

"Test is over as of now. Meet me back in the clearing." Haruka's face was still a stony expression when she flashed out of sight, leaving the blonde with his quivering younger teammate.

She couldn't stop shaking, try as she might. She attempted to take deep even breaths, but all that came out were short shallow ones. She shouldn't be such a baby, it was just a kunai and she knew Shinji hadn't meant for it to hit her. The memory of the sun glinting off the kunai whisking towards her flashed through Naruto's mind's eye and she couldn't suppress another shiver of fear.

"Uzu- Naruto?" Said girl jumped a bit at the shaky voice of her teammate. Looking up Naruto blinked, a bit startled at the ashen appearance of Shinji's face. His hands were also shaking and he kept his eyes downcast, away from her face even though he was addressing her.

"Naruto, I-I'm really sorry. I didn't mean for that to happen. It was just- I saw sensei and-" with a sigh Shinji gave up his explanation, leaving it unfinished to drift in the wind. He glanced down at his feet where, until now, he hadn't noticed his own kunai had been dropped by his sensei. He suppressed a shiver. Even now he could picture Naruto's eyes widening, a glint of fear flashing through their azure depths.

"It's okay Shinji." Naruto spoke in a quiet voice. The Yamanaka's head snapped up at her quick acceptance and she had to hold in a snicker at the bewildered expression. Truthfully, she probably shouldn't have been as scared as she was. After all, she had dealt with much worse on other occasions. "You just caught me off guard."

The boy just stared at her slack jawed for a moment before collecting himself and nodding in her direction.

"Okay then. We better go meet up with sensei."

A few minutes later the entire group was assembled in the clearing, and for the first time in over an hour or two, Naruto got a good look at Satoshi. What she saw almost made her feel sorry for him. Almost. His entire face was covered with long, angry red scratches and it looked like his arms were covered with them too. His hair was disheveled and had twigs, leaves, and even the occasional bug popping out of them. His shirt, which had previously been a lighter blue, was now stained green. Overall it looked like he had been swallowed up by mother earth, and then promptly spat back out.

"I believe times up and no one has got a bell yet have they?" Haruka glanced at her group. Their heads, with the exception of Satoshi, were bowed down, unable to meet her gaze. Satoshi merely glared at the woods, as if expecting the demon cat to emerge right then and there to taunt them. "And I must say that I am thoroughly disappointed in all of your performances."

Haruka turned her gaze on Satoshi first. "You, Satoshi, Fought more with me than the cat which was a foolish action in and of itself. That combined with you arrogance and pig-headed pride, doomed you from the start. Even after you had come across Shinji, neither one of you attempted to team up and work together to catch Yuki." Satoshi felt heat creep up his neck at his sensei's criticism.

"Naruto." The blonde winced waiting for the worst. "You could hardly find Yuki, much less catch him. I had heard that you were able to use the _kage bunshin no justu,_ but you didn't use it at all to split up and search for Yuki," her eyes widened at the suggestion." However, you and Shinji did do well to team up and the strategy you used to try and capture your target might have worked if you hadn't forgotten that I was guarding him. Considering your experience that was to be expected though."

Finally it was Shinji's turn. He winced, knowing what was coming. "You Shinji, I am the most disappointed in." Satoshi gave a broad grin at the remark before Naruto ended it with a swift elbow to the ribs and a glare. "You came across Satoshi and didn't team up, almost coming to blows in fact. As I said before, this to me is unacceptable." Haruka turned to address Satoshi as well. "You must always put the mission first, no matter who you're dealing with. You aren't in the Academy anymore. You don't get to pick who you want to play 'ninja' with, you don't get to complain. You get the job done and that's it."

Both boys glanced at each other briefly, and for once didn't glare. "You did team up with Naruto and your strategy was sound, if somewhat lacking in forethought. But I wanted to see how you reacted when a teammate was in danger, and that is where you truly failed." Satoshi glanced at Shinji, the unspoken question hanging in the air. No one bothered to answer it. "I'm extremely disappointed in all of you, and I had hoped for better. You all should be sent back to the Academy."

"What!" Naruto cried out. "Back to the Academy? But we didn't do that bad did we?" If she was sent back now…Iruka and Anko would be so disappointed in her; Dog-san too. They had all worked hard to get her to this point; she would not and could not fail them now. Naruto looked determinedly up at Haruka. "We have to get another shot. We'll do better this time!"

Haruka looked at all three before finally relenting. "All right. After you eat something you will get one more shot." She turned back to the training logs behind her and placed two bentos in front of her. "Naruto and Satoshi get to eat lunch. You, Shinji, do not."

Naruto sent the boy a sympathetic glance as his stomach rumbled loudly in protest. "I'll be back after I've found Yuki so we can start again. I expect better results." With that, she turned and strode out of the clearing, leaving the trio to themselves.

"So… what the heck did you do to make Haruka-sensei that pissed?" Satoshi finally voiced to Shinji after grabbing one of the bentos.

"I-" he hesitated, "I threw a kunai at sensei while she was holding Naruto out in front of her captive."He swallowed a lump in his throat before continuing. "Because of that Naruto was almost hit by my kunai."

"Wow you're a idiot," Satoshi snickered, "You threw a kunai _in the direction of a teammate that it could easily hit _without a second thought. Just wow."

"Shut up Moron," Naruto snapped at him furiously. "He was just acting on an impulse. And he didn't really hit me anyway."

"Sure," he snorted, "It didn't hit you now pip-squeak, but if it had been a real enemy…" He made a dramatic hand sign slashing across his throat. "You'd be a goner."

Naruto opened her mouth to protest when Shinji cut back in. "Uzumaki," she frowned at the use of her name, or lack there-of, "he's right. It was my fault and I'm really sorry." He glanced at Naruto then Satoshi, who was staring dumbly at having been told he was actually right. "Obviously sensei expected better of us. Next time we should all work together. And I mean _all _of us," said with a pointed look at the brown haired gennin.

"Yeah, I guess," he shrugged, "It's not like we can do much worse. I mean we did already fail."

"Okay then. So next we need to figure out a game plan," Shinji began. Unfortunately at that time his stomach decided to protest against his in-promptue fasting. "Eh."

"Here," Naruto grabbed her still unopened bento and set it down in front of the boy, "You can have mine." It wasn't like she needed it anyways. She had already ignored sensei and eaten breakfast. It wasn't so much as she had purposely disobeyed just to spite Haruka-sensei, more like the 'Oh crap I'm late and I just so happened to be passing Ichiraku' kinda disobeying.

"Are you sure Naruto? You must be hungry too. And you know what sensei said."

She waved him off. "Eh, I'm fine. And have you not been paying attention to that ninja cat all day? It won't be caught for _hours._" Without further prompting, Shinji grabbed the bento and opened it, ravenously tearing into the food.

"Well then." All three students froze, Shinji with a noodle hanging out of his mouth, as Haruka suddenly popped into existence behind them, her footfalls thudding ominously as she walked around to stand in front of them. "I guess you guys made up your minds." Her mouth was set into a thin line and her green eyes were shadowed beneath her violet bangs.

Naruto cringed when a knot of foreboding formed in her stomach. "What do you mean by 'decided'?" She asked warily.

Haruk's head tilted up showing sparkling eyes full of mirth and a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "I mean you decided to put your petty squabbles aside for the betterment of the team. Congratulations. You are all officially gennin of Konoha." The four ninjas sat in silence for a few minutes, the younger three thoroughly dumbfounded.

"WHAT!" Haruka winced a bit at the volume of the combined voices. That word seemed to be one of their favorites as of late. But she recovered fast and continued to shower her students with a bright smile.

"Yep! You are all gennin."

"But-but, the test with the bells, and the demon cat, and-" Naruto stuttered, wide-eyed and disbelieving.

Haruka just kept smiling at the bewilderment on each of their faces. "The purpose of this test was not only to evaluate your skills, which as you noticed I didn't focus on, but more importantly it served to see whether or not you could understand one of the basic shinobi rules. To look 'Underneath the Underneath'."

Satoshi's eyebrows scrunched up. "What the heck is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you must look underneath the secrets that are already there. Look for things hidden by lies or false pretenses. It is one of the most basic principles of ninja life." She waited for the information to settle in before continuing. "What the true purpose behind the lesson was to see whether or not you all could work as a cohesive unit, shoving aside any animosity, which was already present," she gave Shinji and Satoshi a purposeful look, "and any current circumstance."

As the shock from the initial reveal wore off, Naruto felt her jubilation bubble up, not unlike that of when she had passed her first test, and let out a wild burst of laughter. "Yes! I did it!" She laughed, bouncing around the clearing, weaving in and out of her teammates.

"Jeez midget," Satoshi scowled and snatched his hand up from the ground as Naruto stepped where it had been a second before. "Calm down." Inside though, he was doing exactly the same thing and the only reason he was currently not joining in the younger girl's 'festivities' was to preserve some sense of maturity in front of the kid.

"Come on dobe," Shinji gave a sly grin, "you know you want to do the same thing."

"S-shut it teme!" he snapped furiously, heat coloring his cheeks.

Haruka grinned at her team's antics before coughing slightly to grab their attention once again. "Now that that's out of the way, I want to do one more thing before we dismiss for today." She motioned for all of her students to line up in front of her. "I would like to spar with each of you to evaluate your skills. First the youngest, Naruto if you could come stand over here."

Naruto glance nervously at her teammates before following after her sensei to stand about ten feet from her previous position and five feet from her sensei.

Haruka dropped into a relaxed fighting stance, her hands held loosely at her sides. "We'll start whenever you're ready." Naruto nodded before dropping into her own sloppy version of the Academy taijutsu form. Haruka raised an eyebrow but didn't comment.

With a furious battle cry, Naruto lunged at her sensei, a fist flying in front of her aiming for the jounin's gut. Haruka shifted to the side before gripping the girl's extended arm. The woman hooked a foot beneath her's knocked the blonde off balance, forcing her roughly to the ground. The attack was swift and brutal, knocking the wind out of her and causing stars to fill her vision.

Grunting, Naruto forced herself back up before lunging a second time at the jounin, going for the same blow. Haruka's brows creased and she shifted to the side, the same as before in order to easily escape the attack. At the last however, Naruto shifted her weight and drew her arm back, avoiding her sensei's grappling attempt, and quickly lashed at with her leg aiming for the ribs.

The raven's eyes widened a fraction in surprise before bringing up an arm to halt the blow. The force behind the kick was a more than she suspect and Naruto didn't waste any time, bringing her foot back and lashing out with a fist. Quicker than she could see, Haruka weaved around the fist and jabbed the girl sharply in the ribs, forcing Naruto to once again eat dirt.

Haruka-sensei stood straight up, brushing her cloths out. "That's enough." Naruto sat up, wimping the dirt off of her face and glanced up at her sensei. "One question though," she crossed her arms and raised a questioning eyebrow. "Who the heck taught you how to fight? Your taijutsu is akin to a drunken bar brawl."

Satoshi snickered and even Shinji, who was normally kind to the younger girl, couldn't resist the smirk that worked its way onto his features. Naruto blushed scarlet and mumbled under her breath. "No one…"

Haruka blinked in shock, a sinking feeling forming in her gut and she prayed that it wasn't justified. "No one?"

"Yeah no one," she snapped defensively. She knew her taijustu was crap, Anko-nee pointed it out on the first day saying it 'was a bunch of shit' to put it bluntly. It was one of the few things she was incredibly defensive about. Back at the Academy, she had often been neglected in every form of her education, the ninja aspect especially, though she had no idea why. During spars she was left alone for instruction and Iruka didn't always have the time to tutor her separately.

When she had Anko as a tutor, she really only focused on the base physical aspects of being a ninja like speed and strength, not so much form, and of course on her _bunshin_ jutsu.

Haruka frowned at the apparent frustration and embarrassment on her youngest student's face. She expected some sabotage to the girl's education, but nothing to this extent. "Don't worry Naruto, we'll work on it." She helped her to her feet before continuing. "From what I read on your gennin test results, you mainly passed, and just barely at that, because you were fast and hit hard. I'll try and find a style that suits you the best; I have a friend that might help."

Naruto beamed up at her sensei, all sense of gloom forgotten. "Thanks a lot sensei!" Haruka gave her a kind smile before turning to the boys.

"Okay then Satoshi, you're next." The brunette gave a cocky smirk before trading places with Naruto and facing off against his sensei. His performance was…anticlimactic at best. For all of his bravado, the kid was almost as forward as Naruto was with his attacks. He was a blunt, stubborn fighter though and gave little ground to the jounin. The spar lasted less than a minute.

"Satoshi, you have a very stiff style, kind of like a rock. A strong defensive taijustu would probably be best for you." Wincing a bit at his sore backside, Satoshi grumbled a bit before standing up and allowing Shinji to take his place.

Shinji nodded respectfully at his sensei before leaping straight into action, darting towards his sensei. Haruka's eyes widened in surprise, before she composed herself and lashed out with her hand, aiming to get the first hit. Shinji weaved around the jab trying to find an opening in Haruka's defense.

Compared to the others, Shinji's spar clearly showed his ninja clan upbringing. His moves were more precise and thought through, and his taijustu had a semblance of a style in place.

Haruka held out a hand to the Yamanaka on the ground, pulling him up. "Good job Shinji. I see your uncle in already teaching you his taijustu." Shinji nodded in reply. "Then I will trust you to keep working on it with him." Naruto saw Haruka motion for her and Satoshi to join her and she jogged over to stand beside a panting Shinji.

"You all need a lot of work and we'll be sparing every day after our missions." Naruto perked up at the mention of mission.

"So does that mean we're staring mission tomorrow sensei?" she asked.

"Yes," Haruka confirmed, "we'll be starting that tomorrow. I want you all to meet here at seven in the morning from now on. You're dismissed."

Both Satoshi and Shinji nodded and turned to leave, but Naruto didn't budge, "Haruka-sensei, I have a question first."

"Yes Naruto?"

"Where the heck did you get that demon cat Yuki and where the hell did it go?"

* * *

**A/N**: So my story will actually be getting started here and I expect it to last for a long time...a very long time... I also would like too reach a goal of 15 reviews before I post the next chapter. I really need more reviews, my empty box is making me sad... on the upside I would like to thank everyone who has reviewed and favorited my story, It makes me really happy to know that people are liking my story. Please continue to do so!


	8. Chapter 8

Hey guys! I'm having a reeeaallly slow start to this story! I have great ideas planned already out for it, but the problem is actually **getting **to those parts *sigh*. But oh well, here's another chapter of Ashes. I really hope I'm not completely and totally portraying Sasuke in a horrible fashion, but you have to admit...he's a bastard. It gets better though in a long, long, long time from now. Ans when I say long, i mean long, like sequal long.

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing blah blah blah especially not Naruto blah blah blah

* * *

**Chapter Eight**

**A Confrontation of Sorts**

"Pipsqueak do you have target in sight?" A male voice cackled over the intercom.

"Why am I Pipsqueak? I thought I was Maelstorm?"

"Because _Pipsqueak, _you're not awesome enough for _Maelstorm_."

"Oh yeah Porcupine-"

"Naruto," an older female voice cut in, "do have the target in sight?"

Naruto, grumbling under her breath, and peered down out of the tree she was stationed in at her target, strolling idly on the ground unaware of the danger. "Yeah, I have sight."

"Okay," a deeper male voice this time spoke, "everyone jump the target on my mark…NOW" Three blurs burst from the foliage, quickly surrounding their target, who immediately yowled and raced off in another direction.

"Gotcha!" Naruto lunged forward, grabbing at the hissing cat in the center. The cat lunged over the grab, sinking its claws into her back and jumping back off, using her as a springboard. Shinji this time ran and jumped, snatching the cat out of the air.

"Target acquired," Shinji grimaced as the cat dug its claws into his forearm, leaving deep scratched all over.

"That's Tora alright," Satoshi scrutinized the still revolting feline. "Got the red bow and the nick in its ear."

"Yeah," Naruto stood, dusted herself off and approached where the rest of the group were standing. "It's also the demon that spawned Haruka-sensei's demon. Why would anyone want to make more of that thing?"

"Probably so that each generation can make sure the next one suffers just as much as they did," Satoshi grumbled under his breath.

"Good job," Haruka strode out from between the trees, a proud smile on her face. "And I just got lucky with Yuki. She was part of the only litter that Tora ever had."

"Good thing too," Shinji muttered disdainfully, now holding the hissing cat out at a distance. "This is by far the worst mission we have ever done." He wasn't usually one to complain, that was Satoshi's job, but even he'd admit that this was pretty aweful.

Team Three had been an official gennin team for about a week, and had been doing D-rank missions for just as long ranging from babysitting destructive triplets to walking dogs around the village, though this was their first encounter with the infamous Demon Cat Tora.

"Can we go return this thing yet?" Shinji's eye was developing an un-natural twitch as Tora continued to yowl. The cat hissed at Satoshi as he inched closer towards it, swiping its claws in the boys face. Satoshi hissed back. "Stop provoking it dobe," Shinji glared coolly at him.

"Make me, bastard! And that thing started it!"

"It's a cat."

"So?"

Haruka sighed and led the team onwards towards the Hokage's tower, a snickering Naruto right behind her. "All right then, let's go sign off on the mission."

* * *

Naruto felt a sadistic sort of glee, not unlike Anko-nee's, at watching Tora be smothered in the Daiymo's rather large wife's bosom. Somewhere deep inside her, she knew she should pity the poor animal and that this was most likely the cause of all of its psychotic tendencies, but the tiny and burning puncture marks on her back from claws convinced her to feel otherwise.

"That was one of the faster times for catching Tora." Naruto turned her attention back to the front as the Hokage began to speak, puffing a bit on his tobacco pipe. "Well, we have a few other missions, babysitting the Yakushi's triplets, cleaning out the Inuzuka's kennels…" Naruto went pale at the last suggestion. No way was she going to do that job again. It took two days to get the smell out of her hair last time.

"If I may Hokage-sama," Haruka interrupted. "I would like to request the rest of the day off to train my students." The Hokage nodded and waved his hand in dismissal and Naruto sent a prayer of thanks to Kami.

"That would be fine Haruka-san." Haruka bowed, and motioned for her student to follow her out of the room.

"Haruka-sensei," Naruto jogged up to Haruka's side, "why did you ask for the rest of the day off?" The mission normally lasted much longer and they did two or three instead of one before headed out to their training field.

The jounin smiled down at the blonde. "We're going to be doing something different today Naru and I'd like to get a head start on it." The group exited the Hokage Tower and Haruka glanced up at the sun. "It's about noon so you three are free to eat lunch right now, but I want you guys back in our clearing by one thirty."

Naruto beamed. She hadn't had the chance to eat at Ichiraku's for days, which was a crime in and of itself. "Thanks Haruka-sensei!" She turned to her other teammates, but the invitation to join her at Ichiraku's died on her lips at the empty spot behind her where they used to be. Facing her sensei she found that spot to be vacant as well.

A heavy sigh escaped her mouth. "Looks like I'm eating by myself today."

"N-naru-chan?"

The blonde whipped her head around, a smile already creeping on her face, to face the owner of the quiet stuttering voice.

"Hinata-chan!" The pale, lavender eyed girl stood a few feet off, carrying a basket of what Naruto suspected to be herbs and other foods, eyeing her friend with wide eyes. "Hi Hinata-chan!" Naruto bolted over to where her Academy friend stood before giving her a bear hug.

"N-n-naruto, what are y-you doing h-here?" The shy girl stuttered, clutching her basket tightly.

Naruto beamed proudly, "Well since I'm a gennin now I just got done doing a mission with my team. I was about to go eat lunch at Ichiraku's" Hinata gave a small nod and smiled at her friend's boundless excitement. Naruto eyed the shy girl, before her face lit up.

"Would you like to some eat with me Hinata?" Said girl jumped a bit at the sudden question, pushing her index fingers together.

"I d-don't know Naru-chan, I m-mean if its n-n-not too much t-trouble…" Naruto smiled and hooked her arm around one of her friends, pulling her along.

"Nonsense! Come on then Hinata!" As she led Hinata towards Ichiraku's, Naruto babbled about anything and everything, from her team to her sensei, to Tora the demon cat and its demon spawn Yuki.

"Hey Teuchi-jiji, Ayame-nee-chan!" Naruto waved at the shop owner and hopped up on one of the stools.

Ayame paused in her clean up to greet the small blonde. "Hello Naru. Oh and Hinata-chan's here too." Hinata blushed and gave a small bow.

"H-hello Ayame-san, Teuchi-san…"

"Hello Hyuuga-san," Teuchi greeted respectfully. "What'll you and my favorite customer be having?"

"Some miso ramen jiji," Naruto ordered, drumming her fingers idly on the counter.

"A s-s-shrimp for me."

"So Hinata-chan," Naruto turned to her friend, a hungry gleam in her azure eyes and a smirk sliding onto her features, "what was Sasuke-teme's face like when he found out I graduated before his duck butt did? He probably was struck speechless by how awesome I am, right?" She snickered at the mental picture.

Hinata however, averted her eyes and frowned. "Um, a-actually N-Naru-chan…" She bit her lip, unsure if she should continue.

"Well what is it Hinata-chan?" Naruto looked at her friend quizzically.

"M-m-most of the c-class thinks you…d-d-dropped out."

A heavy silence hung over the duo as Hinata finished her sentence. The raven haired girl dropped her head dejectedly and traced the aged lines on the wood of counter, mentally berating herself on having to put a downer on Naruto normally exuberant personality.

"Tch," Naruto scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest, "figures that teme would try to deny my awesomeness." She split the chopsticks lied out in front of her and began to dig into the ramen that Ayame had just set in front of her. "I mphuft hafda tal' da deme mphself," she muffled out around a mouthful of noodles and quickly swallowed. She would prove it to Sasuke that she was better no matter what, even if she had to force it down his throat.

Finishing her first bowl in record time, Naruto wiped her mouth on her trench coat sleeve, before slapping some money down on the table and hopping off the stool. "That teme should be at the Academy training grounds like always, right Hinata-chan?" The girl gave a hesitant nod. "Well then," Naruto shot a foxy grin at her friend and a thumbs up, "I'll just have to go prove it to him right now."

With that the girl bolted out of site, presumably headed towards the Academy grounds where Uchiha Sasuke would be training. Hinata still sat on the barstool of Ichiraku's, looking after her friend's rapidly retreating figure, frowning. "Naruto…"

* * *

Naruto scanned the Academy training grounds for the raven haired boy who would undoubtedly be there. He was always training, even on Saturdays when the Academy was out, apparently having nothing better to do. How boring.

Naruto smiled deviously when she spotted the peculiarly styled hair of the last Uchiha poking out from behind a tree, the boy throwing shuriken and kunai at a training log fifteen feet away. He was dressed in his usual dark colors, a dark blue with the Uchiha fan on the back and black ninja shorts with the typical blue ninja sandals.

After he threw the last kunai, Naruto jogged up to him, untying her hit-aite at the same time. She couldn't keep the grin off her face if she wanted too and was bouncing with barely contained excitement. "Hey teme!" she yelled.

Sasuke froze, and glanced up from where he was gather his weapons. That voice was annoyingly familiar and the happy-go-lucky undertone could only mean one thing. Grunting in annoyance, he turned to face none other than the dead-last failure herself, Uzumaki Naruto.

"What do you want dobe," he snapped.

Naruto blinked in surprise before narrowing her eyes shrewdly at the raven in front of her. "For your information teme," she snapped back, "I'm not a dobe, or for that matter a drop-out."

Sasuke snorted, "Right, that's why you haven't been coming to class for the last week after you failed the exam." He saw the blonde clench her fists and smirked. "Oh please, you didn't expect me to believe that a dead last like you actually passed." Satisfaction welled up inside of him as her face colored. "You couldn't even make a simple _bunshin_."

Naruto was furious, no she was absolutely stupid _teme_ didn't believe her. "Then what's this teme," she shoved her new black hit-aite under the Uchiha's nose. "This proves I passed! They only give these to _ninjas._

He eyed the piece of cloth, his speculation rising a bit before he shoved it down. "A cheap knock off. You couldn't pass that test so you decided to fake it."

She stared at the Uchiha in complete disbelief. Even after practically shoving her hard earned achievement in his face, he still denied it, and even more claimed that she tried to hide her failure. She took a step back from the boy, her hands shaking.

Sasuke eyed the hit-aite again and scoffed, turning away and began picking up his remaining kunai's. "I've got better things to do right now dobe."

Naruto watched him in silence, feeling tears sting at her eyes. All of her hard work…and the teme had denied, still thinking he was superior, better than her, more _talented _because he was an _Uchiha, _than her. Clenching her jaw, she wiped away the falling tears roughly, staring at the raven in front of her spitefully. She had done this to prove to him her worth and her damn dream and he had just thrown it to the side.

"Fine," she hissed, hard ice coating her words, "I don't care if you believe me. I already have my team and am closer to my dream. You're just afraid to admit someone's better than you."

Sasuke continued to ignore the girl as she stomped off the field without another word. Finished picking up his tools, he took his place once again fifteen feet from the training log. Narrowing his eyes and taking a stance, he hurled a kunai, putting as much strength behind it that he could muster, and watched it fly and then thump into the wood a few inches above the bull's eye.

There was absolutely no way the incompetent buffoon could have become a ninja before him. She couldn't even do the simplest of the Academy jutsu.

Gritting his teeth, he hurled another, this one landing closer, but still an inch or two away. No… he didn't care if Naruto really did pass or not. He was still going to be the best and that was that. He would be a genin before long and closer to his goal.

He hurled five more kunai in quick succession, the last of them hitting the center. No…it didn't matter if she passed, he was an Uchiha and would be the best.

* * *

Shinji and Satoshi scooted fearfully a bit farther away from the youngest member of the group, eyeing her. The girl was ripping apart the grass in front of her viciously, scowling at anyone and anything that came into a ten-foot radius. Neither one of the boys was willing to broach the subject of her anger; not even if they were paid and given a thirty-nine and a half foot pole to poke at it with.

"Well, someone's got something stuck up their ass." Naruto's head snapped up so fast Satoshi was surprised it didn't snap with the force. He glanced to where Naruto's rapidly widening eyes were focused when he caught sight of what, or rather who, it was his own eyes grew to the size of saucers. Haruka-sensei walked into the clearing, smiling gently as always. Walking next to their sensei was a woman, in her twenties, dressed in the shortest mini-skirt he had ever discretely or openly laid eyes on. She had striking purple hair, lighter than their sensei-s violet, and brown eyes with a long tan trench coat similar to Naruto's. He was blushing by just looking at the scantily clad woman.

"Anko-nee!" Satoshi gaped at the blonde who had bolted from her spot and attached herself to the stranger's, he guessed Anko's, midsection.

Haruka paused and raised an eyebrow at the other woman who merely shrugged, then pried Naruto off of her.

"Haruka-sensei," Shinji, who Satoshi was pleased to note that his ears were flaming red in embarrassment, glanced at the new kunoichi, his question hanging in the air.

Haruka nodded at Anko, "She's part of today's training, or at least Naruto's training." Naruto finally detached herself from the purple haired ninja, turning an inquisitive gaze towards her sensei.

"My training?"

Anko laid a hand on the girl's blonde locks and ruffled them affectionately. "Yup squirt," Naruto's eye twitched, "I'm here for your taijutsu training."

This time, it was Naruto's turn to gawk up at the kunoichi. "Really Anko-nee, you're gonna teach me your taijutsu style?" Her face morphed to one of pure, un-diluted, admiration.

"Yup," Anko's gave a cocky grin, clearly enjoying the attention, "You're going to have the honor of learning the Hebi style." Naruto yelped as Anko wrapped an arm around her midsection and slung her over her shoulder. "See ya 'Ruka," and with a cheery wave, both she and Naruto poofed away.

Shinji and Satoshi blankly stared at the spot where their blonde teammate had once been, before glancing at each other then back to the patch of ground, neither quite knowing exactly what to say.

Haruka sighed, massaging her forehead and taking a deep breath, before addressing her students. "Okay, first I want you two to spar…"

* * *

"Ack!" Naruto spit out the dirt now occupying her mouth, courtesy an unwanted introduction to the ground. "Anko-nee!" She attempted to stand up, but was roughly pushed back to the ground by Anko's foot.

"Ok brat," the special jounin crouched down and jabbed a finger at the younger girl, "Spill it."

Naruto scowled, averting her eyes. "Spill what?"

Anko just snorted, "Don't play dumb. You looked like you wanted to kill the first thing that even looked at you wrong, not that that's always a bad thing per say. There's gotta be something going on."

The blonde didn't answer, instead focusing on a suddenly fascinating bug crawling on the ground, stagnantly refusing to meet the brown eyes staring expectantly at her. Anko frowned at the action the very uncharacteristic action from the blonde, concern starting to surface. The blonde was normally open and rambunctious, her emotions hanging on her sleeve for everyone to see. To see her so…reserved was almost unnatural and left a sour taste in her mouth. But it looked like she wasn't going to open up without major prompting. Luckily, Anko knew all of the right buttons to push.

Anko clapped her hands, "Fine, if you don't want to talk about it, we won't talk. Let's move on with the training."

Naruto finally looked up at her and nodded, still not speaking or giving any verbal sign of having heard her. Anko sighed, but nonetheless began to explain. "The Hebi style you're about to learn is difficult to say the least. As its name implies, it focuses on striking hard and fast, exploiting every opening, and as soon as it makes a hit, jumping right back out. Its defense _is _its offense and no movement is wasted. It takes speed and strength. Luckily," she inclined her head, "You already have a good amount of both. So we won't focus so much on conditioning now as we will on the actual forms."

The kunoichi sprung to her feet and fell into a relaxed battle ready position; her muscles though were tensed up much like a spring, a sadistic smile curling up her lips. "Lucky for me the best way for you to learn is through trial and error, so this should be fun," she smirked, "…well for me anyway."

Naruto hesitantly stepped up in front of her sensei. She knew what conditioning with her sensei was like(besides the fact she would much rather forget). To say it was hell was a gross understatement. She felt a sick feeling pool in her stomach though at her sensei's smile. This wasn't going to turn out well.

Glancing over at the beginning form of the taijutsu stance, Naruto hesitated before slowly mimicking Anko's posture. Without so much as a sound or warning, Anko sprang into action and rushed her, throwing a quick jab at her thigh. "Move that back!" She snapped, throwing another attack, this time at her shoulder. "No, no! A wider stance baka!"

The next hour or so followed up much the same. Naruto would continuously try and replicate the stances that Anko showed her briefly, trying vainly to dodge out of the way of the kunoichi's helpful 'corrections' whenever she had done something or another wrong. By the time an hour had passed, Naruto was more exhausted than she could ever remember being, and that included her brief time the snake mistress had decided to play a helpful training game of 'hide-and-seek' with one of her favorite snakes before Naruto's genin test. She had been allowed the next day off only because she couldn't move out of bed.

The blonde groaned as she fell to the ground, rubbing at the many different bruises that now littered her tan skin. Grimacing, she peeled up her loose sleeve and caught sight of a rather large one bruise decorating her arm in yellows and greens, just barely setting in. Her trench coat had long ago been thrown off to the side in the heat of the day, lying who knows where in the chaos. That one was most definitely going to look worse for the wear the next morning.

"Not bad runt," Anko's back gave a satisfied pop as she stretched out her arms above her head. "You almost made me break a sweat." Naruto merely glared at her, panting hard. But sure enough, the Kunoichi looked as if she had taken a simple stroll around Konoha in the morning, not a hint of a sheen of sweat coating her forehead.

"Well, now that you've worked out most of your frustration," Naruto's eyes widened at the comment, "How bout you tell me what's wrong."

She immediately averted her eyes from her nee-chan and instead idly fingered her black headband tied loosely around her neck. She thought she had done a fairly good job at hiding it, but obviously she hadn't. Slumping down, she sighed in defeat.

Now that she thought about it though, she did feel a bit better. Almost all of her anger had dissipated along with her energy. She couldn't even muster up enough of it to be angry at the Uchiha when she thought of him.

"Anko-nee," Anko stopped her bored stretching to gaze down at the blonde, "do you remember why I wanted to graduate early?" Naruto asked softly.

Anko frowned, tapping her chin in thought. "Nope. Not really." Naruto scowled at her, but continued.

"Well I did it to prove to everyone how great I was, remember. I wanted to show them that I could be the greatest Hokage ever!" Her cerulean eyes sparkled a bit in determination before they dulled once more. "I especially wanted to prove it to stupid Sasuke-teme…" she muttered scornfully.

"The Uchiha brat?" Anko asked.

Her face darkened and she violently tore out the grass, imagining the Uchiha's face on each and every one of the blades. "Yeah, that stupid baka always acted so much better than me. He never acknowledged me at all…so when I went to meet him today, I finally thought I had a chance to rub it in his face."

Anko grinned widely at her protégé. "I knew you were learning something from me. So how'd it go? Didja make him beg for mercy?"Her grin fell almost as fast as it appeared at the crestfallen look on Naruto's face.

"Yeah right," she muttered, "all it did was make him laugh. Stupid bastard thought I was faking it. And even when I shoved it right up his nose, he just thought I was a nuisance. Everything I did was pointless…"

A resounding slap bounced off the back of her head, forcing Naruto face first into the dirt…again. "OW!" She cried jumping up and rubbing furiously at the newly added bump to her collection. "What was that for?"

Anko stood back, arms crossed over her chest glaring at her. "Because you're being an idiot that's why, ya damn brat!" Naruto reeled back in shock. _What? _

"Who gives a damn what the damn Uchiha thinks, huh?"

She blinked stupidly at the kunoichi. "b-but..I"

"Listen pipsqueak," Naruto grumbled out a halfhearted protest, "who gives a damn what the Uchiha brat thinks? And if you say you do, I swear I'll hang you by your ankles and let my snakes nip at your fingers till they're gone," Naruto closed her mouth, not daring to give voice to that exact statement anymore. Anko wasn't joking.

"As far as I'm concerned, the kid's a bastard and has got something stuck farther up his ass than Hyuuga Hiashi does, and that's sayin' something. You're a ninja. Not a baby who needs someone else's approval or coddling. Grow a pair and move on. Better yet kick the living shit out of the bastard." Naruto gaped at Anko, and even when the kunoichi gripped the back of her trench coat and lifted her to a standing position, she still stared stupidly at her.

Anko was feeling distinctly uncomfortable with the younger girl's blatant staring. She hated giving advice. It tended to get too mushy for her, and 'mushy' for her was uncharted territory. And what did she do in uncharted territory? She got violent.

Naruto barely had time to register Anko's opening attack on her in her daze. Snapping into a vague Hebi stance, she barely avoided the strike in time. As the jabs continued, a warm feeling bubbled in her chest and Naruto couldn't contain the laugh that burst from her throat.

Why did that teme's thoughts matter? He was a bastard! Ducking under one strike, Naruto mounted her own attack for once in the slight opening Anko left exposed, bursting from beneath the outstretched arm to jab the kunoichi.

Anko grinned maliciously, weaving around the strike to deal a snapping kick to the blond. "That's the ferocity I was looking for! Master this style and you'll be kicking that bastard's ass in no time!"

Of course Anko's solution to problems was violence. Not that Naruto minded of course.

* * *

**A/N:** Ok, so I really need a beta, someone I can bounce ideas off of. I have the idea for the next chapter, I just need help starting it...thats how I am with everything that has to do with writing, school essays included. So if you're interested in being a beta for this story (or my other) feel free to contact me!

And review please. Someone made a good coment that it felt like I was holding chapter hostage for reviews and I had forgotten why I had originally started writing and they're partially right. The truth is, it was kinda an excuse...eh heh I didn't have any chapters written an ready to give in the first place. I am REALLY slow on updating! Thanks for all of you who have read my story, I know I don't have the best writing skills but I appreciate all of you and you're support!


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